


White Noise

by nightclxuds



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gun Violence, Kidnapping, Murder, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:21:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 82,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27074908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightclxuds/pseuds/nightclxuds
Summary: ❝ Some things scratch at the surface while others strike at your soul. ❞𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐀𝐒 𝐇𝐀𝐒 𝐃𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 her whole life to catching the monsters in this world--psychopaths, rapists, and murderers--in hopes of fixing something that is broken inside of her.That is until she met him and everything began to change.
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	1. Beginning

**"** _The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness._ **"**

**— _Joseph Conrad_**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**SHE SAT IN THE** darkness, clutching the sides of her stomach like they were on fire. The angry, long slashes of hot, fire-filled fingertips caressing her sides that made her stomach churn. Her body was screaming her to move, to fight, to run. But she couldn't, her body was paralyzed with fear. She shuddered and started to chew the inside of her cheek until she felt the metallic taste of blood on her tongue. It made her feel real, even alive, when she tasted her own blood, proving to herself that she was still a tangible human being. She can bleed, she can feel, she still existed.

He can't take that away from her, no matter what he did to her.

She could hear his voice in her ear, whispering her name as his hands explored places on her body where they were unwanted. She couldn't scream for help, not with him pointing a gun at their heads in the other room. She couldn't, or he would kill them. They were all she had, she wouldn't lose them. Not to him.

She felt the sharp end of a knife carve into her side and he chuckled, pleased at her whimpers of pain she couldn't stop from coming out of her mouth.

"You're mine now." He muttered as his sweaty, dirty hand clamped down on her jaw, preventing her from screaming as he started his torture. She felt his hot, disgusting breath steam in her face, making her eyes water. His rancid breath wanted to make her throw up but she had nothing in her stomach to give up. "Don't you ever forget that."

Then, the sound of someone knocking at her door shook Caroline out of her memory. She opened her eyes drowsily, glancing around the room warily.

She was still in her apartment, in her warm, safe bed. It was just a memory.

Sherbet, her white toy poodle, hopped onto her bed and crawled his way into her lap, resting himself right in between her crisscrossed legs as he barked at the front door, acting as her ferocious protector like he always does.

"Thanks, Sherbie." The girl told her dog lovingly, petting his white curls gently as he yapped. "I don't know what I would do without you, buddy."

Caroline ran her fingers through her light blonde curls, trying to take slow, deep breaths to calm herself. It's almost been six years since _He_ had happened, and each time she had a flashback, it felt like yesterday. There was no escape, no way out. She was doomed to relive the worst moment of her life over and over again. She had tried everything from therapy to changing her name to get rid of that horrible, awful feeling that she'd never be whole again, and nothing ever worked.

Another loud knock at the door caused Sherbet to start growling, barring his small canines at the door.

"Down boy," Caroline told her precious pup, trying to calm him down. She picked him up as she turned to the door and hollered, "I'm coming, I'm coming! Ease up on the door!"

"Come on, blondie!" She heard Derek Morgan's voice call through the door. "We have a case, and you haven't been answering your phone."

She frowned as she reached over and checked the messages on her phone.

"Shit." She muttered as she scrolled through the six messages Derek left her and the five from Hotch in her voicemail.

She hopped off her bed and her bare feet padded on the wooden floor to her door, unbolting it from the wall and unlocking it before she opened the door. A tall, muscular African American man with closely-cropped black hair and bushy eyebrows set overdetermined, hard eyes stood outside the door. Given the small sweat that clung to his temples and his slightly-ragged breathing, Caroline concluded that he had ran all the way here from wherever the hell he's been, so whatever he had tried to contact her about had to be urgent.

"Derek, what the hell is going on?" She asked him as Sherbet wiggled around in her arms. Once he realized it was Derek at the door, Sherbet immediately went back into his normal mood of ass-kissing. Especially to Derek.

"Sherbie!" He said, taking the wiggling dog from her arms. Sherbet's long pink tongue licked his face repeatedly, excited for a new face. "Who's your favorite BAU agent, huh? Who is it, boy?"

"Still Garcia, especially since last Christmas."

"Well, that's only because she feeds him cookies every time she sees him. And she's not an agent, she's a technical analyst."

Caroline snorted. "Oh, whatever. Talk to me, Morgan, what do we have?"

Her fellow agent set her dog down on the floor and the sound of his paws paddling against the wooden floor to the tile kitchen floor scraped across the room. Derek smiled at her as he came into her apartment and closed the door behind him.

"A couple of missing women in Seattle. You're needed in the vans."

"Vans? What about the jet?"

"The jet comes later, Care. Right now, we have to pick up some old friends first."

Caroline narrowed her eyes, suspicious. "The BAU doesn't have any old friends."

Derek chuckled. "I guess you wouldn't consider him a friend in this case. Gideon is coming back."

Caroline stopped in the middle of putting her jacket on as her mouth dropped open. "Gideon? _The_ Gideon?"

"In the flesh. We have to convince him to come then board the jet. And to do that, we need your beautiful little profiler mind to do so."

"Why me?"

He glanced over at the pictures setting on her kitchen counter, his eyes roaming them. He passed the picture of Caroline and Derek standing with the rest of the BAU team at FBI headquarters, all of them professional, and a couple of family photos before heading straight to the one of her with a tall, lanky boy with thin, slicked-back shoulder-length brown hair.

She remembered that picture. In a rare moment, Garcia had managed to smuggle a camera in the FBI and taken that photo of them, Caroline at her desk, laughing, and the boy bent down over her, seemingly trying to explain something.

Derek smiled and gingerly picked up the picture. He gently tapped on the picture of the smiling boy in the picture. "Because to get Gideon back, Reid needs to talk to him. And no one can get through to Reid as you can."

Caroline sighed and took the framed photo from Derek's hands, brushing her fingertips against the smooth oak frame as she stared at the people in the picture. They looked happy, and that was one of the reasons she kept it. It was one of the only pictures she had that actually had her smiling for real, and nothing fake like she usually had to keep up for appearances. The rare time she felt something other than nothing.

She tried to keep her face calm and impartial but she could feel her emotions slipping through the cracks.

"I highly doubt he will care what I have to say." She whispered, setting the picture back down on the counter delicately.

"Care, look, whatever happened between the two of you last year—"

"Nothing happened!" She snapped at him, flipping her blonde curls behind her, agitated.

"Okay, okay, nothing happened." He told her complacently, studying her face carefully. She could tell he was trying to profile her mood, but that wasn't his job, it was hers. One of the perks of being a behavior expert is not only being able to read the signs but knowing when and how to control them. "You two have been friends since you joined the BAU last year. Whatever did or did not happen, you can't let it affect the job, kid. We need you."

Caroline straightened her back and took quiet, slow breaths, trying to keep up a calm facade. If she talks to Reid, fine. She can handle that. She's been through much worse situations than that. She can handle anything at this point.

What happened between them was a mistake and it wasn't going to happen again. It couldn't happen again.

"Okay." She replied, grabbing her go-bag that she kept stashed in the corner of the room while she slipped on her heels. "I'm in."

Derek grinned and ruffled her blonde hair as she walked out in the hallway while keeping Sherbet from running out of the apartment. She looked up at him and glared, smoothing back her hair as they walked down the hallway.

"I knew you would do the right thing, kid. Let's go get the rest of our team."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"No, no, Haley, don't worry." Caroline heard Hotch say into his phone as she walked alongside him through the university halls. "I'll be careful, and I will be back soon to help pick out baby names, okay?"

The young profiler looked up at her boss and frowned. "Why are you even here, Hotch? You have a baby on the way. Morgan and I can handle this."

Derek nodded beside her. "Kid's got a point."

Caroline has known Aaron Hotchner since he worked a case on her family six years ago. He was about 6' 1" with a stocky build, dark hair, and an unexpressive face that was almost like a statue's if he tried hard enough. The man was a workaholic and he was good at what he does. But it's Caroline's job to make sure he comes out alive, per Haley's instructions. And he was the reason she became a profiler in the first place, so she did owe him.

Hotch glanced back at the blond-haired girl and shook his head. "It'll be fine. I'm just trying to talk Haley out of the name ' _Gideon_ ' for our child."

Caroline heard Derek snort and she promptly reached beside her and whacked him in the shoulder. Hard.

"Damn, Care. You got an arm." He rubbed his shoulder lightly to emphasize his point.

"That's my godson you're talking about." She pointed out. She looked over at Hotch and told him, "Whatever you guys decide will be fine, I'm sure. But Haley is the one with the morning sickness and back pain. Maybe you should listen to her."

Her boss chuckled. "Of course you would take her side. It's why she made you the godmother of our child."

"Don't lie, I know you wanted me to be as well."

"Yeah, yeah," Hotch told her before returning to his phone. "I have to go, Haley. I love you. Bye." He shut his phone off and slipped it into his coat pocket. "Tell me what we've got, guys."

Caroline and Derek immediately opened the case files that they had been given earlier in the day, filing through countless police reports and glossy crime scene photos.

"They're calling him the Seattle Strangler." She informed them as she glanced through a prior police report. "4 victims in 4 months. He keeps them alive for 7 days before disposing of the bodies."

Derek pulled out a crime scene photo of a woman's body, the unsub's second victim. She was lying with her back flat on the ground and her face covered in leaves and dirt from being dragged into the woods. He pointed to the long wooden object sticking out from her neck, connected to some belt wrapped around her throat. Her cloudy, dead eyes were wide in fear.

Caroline stared into the poor girl's eyes and imagined what it would be like to have your last moments on this Earth to be in fear, to know that no one was coming to save them.

That was what she felt six years ago, and it was one of the most sickening, horrifying feelings a person could have. That is why she does what she does—to prevent another person, like her and the Seattle Strangler victims, from feeling what they had felt. To at least know that there is someone out there trying to save them. That there is some hope for the hell to eventually end.

If she had hope back then, maybe she could've saved her family.

"The handle serves as a crank, allowing him to control the rate of suffocation," Derek explained, pointing to the long wooden shaft at the base of her throat.

"To prolong it?" Caroline asked him, frowning as she examined the photo.

"More like to enjoy it, given the time frame."

"Well, Seattle's hit a wall. Physical evidence is basically nonexistent on the victims and the crime scenes." She continued to explain from the police report. "There are currently no tangible leads, and another girl is missing."

"Okay, team," Hotch said as they approached Gideon's office. "Caroline, Reid said he's given Gideon the case file yet?"

She opened her phone and checked her messages. There was a text from Reid on the screen for earlier, which read: **Got it.**

She glanced up and nodded to Hotch. He sighed and prepared the case file with Derek as she slipped her phone bag into her bag.

She hadn't seen Reid in six weeks, not since he decided to stay close to Gideon after the bombing. Their first contact had been this morning, and neither of them dared mentioned what happened six months prior to that. It was the real reason Spencer Reid had decided to stay away from HQ for six months, and it was because of her.

When Hotch opened the office door, Caroline shook out of it. She had a task at hand, she reminded herself, and everything prior to that is non-sequential. The victims were her top concern.

"Look, I'll look the case file over, and send my thoughts back to you ASAP." She heard a man's voice say the moment the door opened.

"Not necessary," Hotch replied as he entered the office, with Caroline and Derek following suit. "You'll be with us in Seattle ASAP."

As she stepped into the office, she was instantly struck with the strong smell of Benzaldehyde and lignin, the common ingredients found in antique books. The strong almond-like scent filled her nose as she glanced around the small office.

Books lined the walls everywhere. She was able to recognize some of her favorite authors on the shelves, like Sir Author Conan Doyle, John Steinbeck, and Kurt Vonnegut, but most were foreign authors or people she had never heard of. In the back of the office, there was a small oak desk where a middle-aged man dressed in a striped shirt under a black tweed jacket and pants stood. He had on thin, rectangular glasses over his dark, wrinkled eyes and black hair peppered with silver.

Beside him was a tall, lanky boy with smoothed back brown hair. He had looked up the moment they had walked in and his eyes immediately focused on her. Her heart thudded in her chest erratically, but she kept herself calm and composed.

Reid hadn't changed much since she last saw him. His hair had grown a bit longer, but his face still retained some of its boyish features. She met his gaze, despite the hard thumping in her chest, and he gave her a small smile.

Relief washed over her. It was a sign for her, to let her know that he wasn't mad at her. That what happened six months ago didn't matter. He was still her friend, and that was what mattered most.

She gave him a small, delicately smile back before turning back into the situation at hand.

The man glanced up the moment the group of them stepped into the office. He had the case files for the Seattle Strangler spread across his desk. He carefully took off his glasses as he approached the small group standing in the middle of the office.

Derek held up a photo of a pretty, red-headed woman to the man. "This is 22-year-old Heather Woodland."

"Before she left for lunch, she downloaded an email with a time-delayed virus attached," Hotch explained to him. "The killer's virus wiped her hard drive and left this on the screen." He handed the man the crime scene photo of Heather's computer.

He glanced at it before looking up at the rest of them, frowning.

"' _For Heaven's sake, catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself_ '." The man read off the paper aloud in a deep, controlled voice.

"He never keeps them for more than seven days," Caroline told him. "Which means we have fewer than 36 hours to find her." The man turned around and stared at her, waiting for her to continue.

"They want you back in the field, Gideon. Are you ready?"

"Looks like medical leave is over, boss," Reid told him, grinning.

"They sure they want me?" He asked them.

Hotch chuckled. "The order came from the director himself."

"Well then." Gideon smiled at them, making her feel a bit nervous. "We better get started."


	2. Extreme Aggressor

**"** _The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you will see_. **"**

**— _Winston Churchill_**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**THE MOMENT THE SUV** stopped, the team began to pile out of the sleek, bulletproof van and headed towards the large white jet waiting for them on the wet pavement. Caroline carefully stepped out, hiking her slacks above her ankles carefully so they didn't touch the dirty puddles from the rain that came in earlier this morning. Her heels clicked on the pavement loudly as she followed Morgan and Gideon with Reid on her heels towards the jet.

She was vaguely aware of Hotch hanging behind them, discussing something in deep thought with one of their superiors, but she tried her best not to eavesdrop. She knew that Hotch hated it when she did that.

"Caroline, wait!" She heard Reid say from behind her. Her nerves raced but she slowed her pace down slightly, shortening her strides so he could catch up to her.

She knew that this had been coming. They had to talk about what happened six months ago sometime, and the longer they put it off, the more awkward it gets. She just had to get it over with, like ripping off a bandaid.

She glanced beside her as she saw Reid glide up beside her, matching her pace in order to keep up with her. He was carrying a large silver case, undoubtedly a forensic kit of some sort. He had always been into chemistry, so that sort of thing wasn't odd for him.

"Hey, Reid, I know we haven't gotten a chance to talk yet, but—"

"I think Hotch wants to replace Gideon."

Caroline blinked a couple of times, trying to comprehend what he just said. "Excuse me?"

"Hotch. I heard him talking to one of the FBI coordinators. They were talking about Hotch giving an assessment of Gideon in case he can't profile in the field and—"

"Reid, are you sure that's what you heard?" She asked him skeptically as they boarded the plane. "You could've taken it out of context. Hotch would never try and replace Gideon."

"Care, I have an eidetic memory. Of course, I'm sure." He told her, frowning.

The two settled down beside each other on the jet with Caroline draping her coat over on one of the arms of the seats while Reid settled in next to her, setting down his silver case while grabbing files to lay on the table in front of them.

"I just think you might be over-reacting." She told him quietly. "I know Hotch, and he wouldn't betray Gideon, or any of us, like that. Okay?"

Reid sighed, clearly resigned from the subject. "Okay."

It was silent for a moment, the only sounds were Derek and Hotch chatting in the front and the sound of the jet's engine purring like as it was about to take off. Caroline nervously tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear before speaking.

_Rip it off like a bandaid, just like a bandaid..._

"Look, I think we should talk about what happened—"

She was suddenly interrupted by Gideon, who had been fairly quiet on the trip but was making up for it now. "What do we have?"

She gave out a little puff, both relieved and annoyed at the same time. Relieved, that she had been saved from a potentially awkward situation, but annoyed because that meant it was still going to be there and it was going to bother her until it was resolved.

Reid looked over at her, confused, but she just raised her hand and waved it dismissively.

"I'll just...talk to you later, I guess." She murmured to him, which he nodded reluctantly before both of the young profilers tuned into the conversation.

Reid began to read off the file laying on the table in front of them. "His first victim was 26-year-old Melissa Kirsh. Stab wounds, strangulation—"

"Wait, wait, back up." Derek interrupted, gripping the back of Caroline's seat. "He stabbed her...and then strangled her to finish her off?"

"Other way around." Gideon corrected him. "Why do you think he started using the belt with the second murder?"

Caroline frowned as she thought. "Strangulation with your bare hands isn't easy. He probably tried, found that it took too long, so he stabbed her instead."

"And realized it would be hours cleaning up the blood," Hotch told them as he slowly sank down in the chair across from Caroline.

Derek began to tap his fingers against her chair, which she almost immediately became annoyed with. "So, next time, our boy's got a method -- the belt."

"He's learning, perfecting his scenario," Gideon said. "Becoming a better killer."

"What does that mean in relationship to the unsub?" Derek asked him. "He's creating his M.O.?"

Then, that feeling of horror she usually gets when working a case trickled down her spine as she realized what the Seattle Strangler was doing.

"No, he's not creating his M.O. He's becoming more sadistic, more controlled—"

"Like he's devolving?"

"Like he's evolving. He's becoming an organized serial killer. And he won't stop until he gets caught."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

After the long, never-ending flight from Virginia to Washington, the team finally arrived at the F.B.I Northwest Field Office in Seattle. Caroline slipped out of the dark SUV after doing a quick stretch and followed the rest of the BAU inside calmly, resting her bags on the security checkpoint, allowing them to search her things. The officer pawed through her go-bag, messing up the folded and clean clothes she had painstakingly organized the night before. She glared at the officer as he handed her bag and began to go through her case files in her satchel. She tried to organize her things but to no avail. He had already screwed up her whole bag.

She sighed, zipping up her bag and slinging it over her shoulder carelessly.

Suddenly, Caroline felt someone staring at her. She glanced behind her shoulder, peeking through her blonde hair in a vain attempt to hide her face. That's when she saw Him.

He remained faceless, as always. His face was nothing more than a lopsided pile of flesh with empty eye sockets and a large gaping hole lined with sharp, jagged teeth for a mouth. He grinned at her with his decayed yellow teeth, pleased he caught her attention.

"Caroline." He whispered in her ear, his disgusting breath caused the hair on the back of her neck to stand straight up. "Look at me."

She took several deep breaths, trying to maintain her composure. She didn't like being surrounded the big crowd of agents, it only made her feel even more claustrophobic than she already felt. The people would surround her, shoving and smashing together to cut off her oxygen, suffocating her if she didn't do what He wanted. . .

 _Snap out of it!_ she thought to herself. _You're safe._

Caroline glanced around the large lobby, watching the people bustle around, involved in their own problems. She checked everyone around her, almost paranoid. He was gone.

When she finally felt safe about no immediate threat, she allowed herself to take in her surroundings. A large FBI emblem was plastered onto the center of the floor over the orange tile, which was beginning to crack and fade. The offices were made of glass dividers and the team's bustling inside didn't stop for one second. It smelled of coffee and freshly-printed paper. She preferred HQ back in Quantico better, but this would have to do for now, at least until they solved the case.

As she picked up her bags from the security clearance, Derek and Reid came up behind Caroline, both bumping into her to grab her attention. She looked at the two of them, confused, as Gideon brushed by them, oblivious to the three profilers stopping inconveniently in the middle of the lobby.

"He never stands with his back to a window," Derek muttered to them, watching Gideon carefully as he walked away. "When I was between him and a doorway, Gideon asked me to move."

"That's hypervigilance," Reid explained to him defensively. "It's not uncommon in post-traumatic stress disorder."

"Just how much disorder are we talking about?"

Caroline sighed, watching Gideon as they walked. She knew what it felt like to be in his shoes right now, trying to avoid seeming anything less than calm and composed but it was tiring. Sometimes, the panic is too much to contain. There's no rhyme or reason. One minute, everything is fine and the next there's no air. Like one minute she had her family and the next she didn't. It only took a second for both Caroline's and Gideon's world to collapse.

"Derek, it's been six months." She told him assuringly, even though she wasn't fully confident. "Everything is going to be okay."

He snorted, clearly unconvinced, but dropped the subject. The three of them followed Hotch and Gideon inside the briefing room as Hotch began introductions.

"This is Special Agent Jason Gideon, Special Agent Derek Morgan, our expert on obsessional crimes, Special Agent Spencer Reid—"

"Dr. Reid." Gideon corrected him as he set his stuff down while the rest of them filed in the room. 

Hotch sighed. "Excuse me, Dr. Reid, our expert on, well, everything. And Special Agent Caroline Lucas, our expert on behavioral language and psychopathy." Hotch introduced them. "And after two years busting my butt in this office, I hope you remember me."

That earned a small chuckle from the crowded room of FBI agents before everyone settled down and began to listen.

"He's willing to travel with the body," Gideon said as he examined the Seattle city mapped marked with multi-colored labels indicating important areas—blue for abduction sites and red for crime scenes. The distance between them was substantial, about ten to fifteen miles between each red and blue marker. There was no way the unsub didn't have a car.

"Then he must drive a vehicle capable of concealing one," Hotch informed them.

"Approximately 1 in 7.4 drivers in Seattle owns an SUV." Reid injected.

"Explorers with tinted windows, maybe?" Caroline asked him as she examined the victim board.

"Explorers rate higher with women."

"But how do we know it's his car?" Derek asked curiously. "Ted Bundy drove a VW Bug."

"What about a Jeep Cherokee?" Hotch suggested to Reid, who nodded in thought.

"Jeeps are more masculine."

"We all know how an unsub feels about asserting his masculinity." Caroline murmured to herself, which caused Derek to chuckle beside her.

"When did the Bureau become involved with the case?" Hotch asked a few of the FBI agents as he examined the evidence board carefully.

An older Asian man dressed in suit and tie, similar to Hotch's with peppered grey hair stepped forward. He was obviously a senior agent, or at least, somewhere close to that rank. "After the fourth body. He dumped that one out of state."

A red flag went off in Caroline's mind immediately. Anytime a killer stray from M.O., it could've meant one of two things. One possibility is he was devolving. The other was much more common.

"He could've done it on purpose." She suggested. "This shows some knowledge of law enforcement, which suggests a criminal record."

"Or that he watches television," Derek said. He looks over the agent holding the case file. He nodded to him, extending his hand. "May I?"

"So do you want to look at our suspect list?" The senior agent asked.

Caroline's head swiveled away from the evidence board and fixated on the senior agent, clearly feeling the anxiety running through her body, like a spasm.

"No.," Hotch told him calmly, sensing her distress. "We won't look at a suspect list until after we come up with a profile. It keeps our perspective unbiased."

She sighed, feeling relief flood into her system. Hotch had always had a good detector for Caroline's distress and this time it paid off. Before going into any case, she could not look at the suspect list. She had a process, and that was a part of it. Make the profile, then see who fits it. Not the other way around.

There wasn't much in her life she could control, but how she profiled was one of the few things she had left that was still in her control. And she was damn well capable of at least keeping that.

"When do we sit down with your task force?" Gideon questioned the senior agent.

"Four o'clock."

Derek's head glanced up from the file he was reading, his face turned into a scowl. "An accurate profile by four o'clock today? Are you serious?"

"That's not a problem." Gideon murmured as he walked towards the crime scene photos, staring at them with extreme focus, so in-depth with what he was doing. He became an unstoppable profiling machine.

She smiled a little as the old profiler looked over the crime scene photos. She had been with Gideon before the bombing that killed six federal agents, which had caused him to take a break from profiling. He was silent most of the time, not very emotional, but there were moments when she saw it. When he'd slip up and reveal how much he really cared for these victims and the people affected. He puts everything he has into every single case and that strain wears down on a person eventually.

But the real reason she thought so highly of the man was because of what he does for Reid. He is Caroline's best friend, or at least, he was and Gideon has done so much for him, she couldn't help but admire the man. He had become Reid's mentor and somewhat of a rock for when she couldn't be strong for him and she appreciated that immensely.

Reid deserved to have someone good in his life, and she knew it could never be her. At least, now he has somebody to go to when she's not completely there.

"So, Agent Gideon," Caroline began, "where would you like to start?"

He looked back at her and nodded, reaching over to point at one of the crime scene photos. His finger rested against a picture of the underpass of a bridge, which had been littered with every trash known to man.

"At the site of the last murder."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline and Reid glanced around as they entered the Heather Woodland's house, trying to find any clues. It was a small two-bedroom house in a quiet suburban neighborhood. There were random bits of trash on the tables and dressers -- leftover food containers, magazines, and newspapers were scattered everywhere. It wasn't much to go on and no signs of any foul play.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't meet you at the station." Heather's brother David told them as they walked through the house. He looked very similar to his sister with short, reddish hair and pale complexion. "I couldn't leave Sandy."

Reid looked over at her in shock. "Oh, Sandy? We weren't aware Heather has a daught—"

They stopped when they saw a large golden retriever sitting on its haunches with its tail wagging rapidly as they approached. The dog panted as Heather's brother came by her side and rubbed the back of the dog's ears.

The moment Sandy saw Reid, she began to bark loudly, causing him to jump, clearly startled by the loud noise. He stared at the dog, unsettled and clearly uncomfortable, which made Caroline have to refrain from laughing.

"Sandy, no, no, no." David Woodland scolded the dog before turning back to them. "I'm so sorry."

"No, it's okay." She told him, smiling. "It's what we call the Reid Effect. It happens with children too." Spencer glanced over and glared at her, which made her want to laugh anymore but she swallowed it down to continue talking. "I'm Agent Lucas and this is Special Agent Dr. Reid."

The victim's brother led Sandy farther back in the living room with the two profilers following him. He glanced over his shoulder and examined Reid curiously.

"You look too young to have gone to medical school." He told him.

"They're Ph.D.s. 3 of them."

"What are you? Are you a genius or something?"

"I don't believe that intelligence can be accurately quantified," Reid explained to him. "But I do have an I.Q. of 187 and an eidetic memory and can read 20,000 words per minute."

Heather's brother stared blankly at him, a look of confusion plastered on his face.

Reid sighed. "Yes, I'm a genius."

Caroline looked down at the dog and began to pet her as Reid began to wander around the room, looking for any more evidence or clues.

"Sandy, you get a lot of attention, don't you?" She said to the dog playfully as she rubbed the dog's soft fur.

"Yeah, Heather loves this dog." The victim's brother said to her. "I feed her when Heather's away. Usually, she's fine, but. . . lately, she won't eat. It's almost like she can sense something's wrong."

"Not sense. Smell." Reid interjected as he rifled through a stack of magazines. "Our apocrine sweat gland released secretions in response to emotional stress."

"Sandy's worried because she knows you are." Caroline translated for him, which he nodded slowly as he processed Reid's language.

Spencer may not be the best with social manners, but even she had to give it to him. The boy knows everything there is to know about everything. She used to be terrified to play scrabble with him because of how many twelve letter words he knew how to create.

"David, does your sister drive a Datsun Z?" He asked the victim's brother.

"No, but she's in the market for one. How'd you know?"

Reid held up a Datsun Z catalog with a picture of a red-and-orange muscle car displayed on the front. She stared at the magazine, trying to think. Caroline migrated closer towards her fellow colleague as her mind began to work.

"There's an immediate relationship established between a buyer and a seller. A level of trust." Reid told her, handing her the catalog to look through. "If I want to coax a young woman into my car. . ."

"Offer her a test drive." She finished for him, shaking her head. They looked at each other and she set the catalog down. "Call Hotch. I think we just figured out how the unsub lures his victims."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"Okay, then how 'bout the fact that on one hand, we have paranoid psychosis, but the autopsy says what?" Derek asked as he tossed a small baseball up in the air consistently as he walked around the conference room.

"Adhesive residue shows he put layer after layer of duct tape over his victims' eyes," Reid said as he spun around in circles on a wheeled chair.

After interviewing David Woodland, Caroline and Reid had come back to Seattle's field office to go over the facts of the case with everyone. Gideon and the latest crime scene hadn't presented anything new, except for maybe some minor details in the profile. Derek was getting increasingly annoyed at the lack of evidence and leads they were getting so far while she, Hotch, and Reid just listened to him rant.

"He knows he wants to kill them, but he still covers their eyes. He doesn't want 'em looking at him, apparently. But then, he takes the body and dumped it right out in the open. Murder weapon nearby."

"Definitely not the M.O. of a paranoid convinced he's being watched or surveilled," Reid told him, watching Derek wear a hole into the tiled floor.

"Paranoid psychosis, but behavior that's not paranoid."

"Maybe he's schizophrenic?" Caroline suggested to him.

"Or maybe we just don't have enough for a complete profile."

"We have enough to narrow our list of suspects," Hotch assured him calmly.

"You know, we're looking at less than twelve hours to find this woman. Hotch, we don't know anything!"

"All right, enough," Gideon spoke up from the back of the room. During Derek's meltdown, he had been quietly looking at a Seattle city map marked with all the locations of the case. His hands shook at his sides, jittery as he faced the B.A.U sitting at the conference table. "Hotch, tell them we're ready."

Caroline uncrossed her legs and scooped up all the pertinent files on the conference table as Gideon exited the conference room. Reid began to help her as Hotch stood up, preparing to speak with the Senior Agent.

"We're ready?" Derek questioned, shocked. He held the small baseball in his hand away from his body, self-consciously distancing himself from them. He turned to Caroline and Reid at the table getting ready. "You guys are good with this? We've got a woman who's only got a few hours left to live, an incomplete profile, and a unit chief on the verge of a nervous breakdown."

Gideon had stepped back into the room at that moment, rushing into the room to grab a pen. He looked over at Derek and calmly said, "They don't call them nervous breakdowns anymore," before exiting the room once more.

"It's called a major depressive episode," Reid informed him.

"I know, kid. I know."

The whole time everything had been going on, Caroline had checked out into her own world, trying to think and process.

She couldn't be distracted by Gideon's current state. Whether or not he was having a depressive episode was beyond her control. She was supposed to stick to things she can control, like her profile.

As she gathered up her things and went into the main lobby where Gideon was presenting the profile, she began to think about the case.

How long does it take to change someone's life forever? A day? A minute? A second? Because that's what happened. Heather Woodland was a regular 22-year-old woman and now, if she makes out of this alive, this'll scar her forever. Her work life, home life, and social life, including dating, are all wiped or altered beyond the point of recognizability because all she can think about is Him and what he did to her.

Sometimes, Caroline asked herself if the job was worth it. Now, it was one of those times she had to prove it was.

"The unknown subject, or unsub, is white and in his late 20s." Gideon began with the profile talking swiftly but assuredly like he was perfectly at ease for someone in a depressive episode. "He's someone you wouldn't notice at first. He's someone who'd blend into any crowd."

"The violent nature of the crime suggests a previous criminal record—petty crimes. Maybe auto theft."

Gideon sighed as he walked around the room, watching everyone for a response to the profile. "We've classified him as an organized killer. He's careful. Psychopathic as opposed to psychotic. He follows the news, has good hygiene. He's smart."

"'Cause he's smart, the only physical evidence you'll find is what he wants you to find. He's mobile—car in good condition. Our guess is a Jeep Cherokee, tinted windows."

He stopped pacing when he reached the center of the room, standing straight and still as he explained. "The murders have all involved rapes. But rape without penetration is a form of piquerism, and that tells us he's sexually inadequate. Psychiatric evaluations will show a history of paranoia stemming from childhood trauma—the death of a parent or family member.

The people around Gideon glanced at each other skeptically and Caroline saw the disbelief in their eyes and she sighed under her breath.

That was always a problem being a profiler. People never believe what you're telling them until it was too late.

"Now, he feels persecuted and watched. Murder gives him a sense of power. Organized killers have a fascination with law enforcement. They will inject themselves into the investigation. They will even come forward as witnesses to see just how much the police really know."

"That makes them feel powerful, in control. Which is why I also think...in fact, I know...you have already interviewed him."

Everyone around Gideon started to murmur softly to each other, sharing looks of shock and confusion. He glanced up at his team standing against the back wall and nodded to them calmly. He was feeling better.

"Do you really think we've already seen this guy?" Derek whispered to behind her, staring warily at Gideon.

She glanced back at her co-worker and gave him a small smile. Gideon had just confirmed everything she had already thought. And she knew exactly where to start.

"There's no doubt in my mind."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline jogged carefully to the small Victorian house sitting at the corner of the quiet street. She tugged her coat tightly around her body as the brisk night air picked up, beginning to nip at her nose and cheeks. She rubbed them gently with her gloved hands, trying to bring some warmth back to her face as she walked up onto the rickety old porch. She approached the door cautiously, reaching forward slightly with her fist raised. She tapped on the door once, then twice, before waiting patiently.

A couple of seconds later, the door opened slowly to reveal an elderly woman with wild grey hair and flower-print clothes. She had a plastic tube wrapped around her face, leading right into her nose, indicating she wasn't exactly healthy. Behind her was a middle-aged woman holding a crying baby in her arms, who was staring at her tiredly.

Caroline gave them a small polite smile.

"Hi," she said kindly to the old woman, "I'm so sorry to bother you. I'm house-sitting down the street, and when I got back, the door was wide open and the lights weren't working."

She laughed lightly and brushed some stray locks of blonde hair out of her face, still smiling at the elderly woman calmly. "I feel so stupid asking this, but is there someone who might be able to take a look inside with me?"

The old woman smiled at her and patted her hand soothingly. "Of course, dear. Wait one second."

She turned slowly, shifting the oxygen canister at her side so she was directly facing the staircase leading to the second floor. She took a deep breath and began hollering up the stairs, "Richard! Richard, get down here!"

A couple of moments later, the sound of heavy, reluctant feet dredging down the staircase followed by the sighs of a skinny, tall man with small, beady eyes and rat-like features who stood at the base of the stairs.

"What?" He complained in a nasally, high-pitched voice.

"Can you walk this poor girl to her house? She's afraid there might be someone in her house."

He groaned buy began shuffling his feet forward. He didn't look at Caroline once. "Sure, whatever."

He followed her outside into the quiet, cold night silently, refusing to look her in the eyes. He just stared at his beaten-up shoes as they walked towards the house across the street.

"Are you sure you locked it?" The guy asked her meekly as they approached the front door. He still didn't look at her.

She sighed, exasperated. "Yeah."

Richard pulled out a flashlight from his over-sized jean jacket and turned it on as he opened the door, the hinges creaking with every move. He cast the beam around the dark house as he looked around.

"Hello?" He called into the house as Caroline trailed behind him as he walked into the house. "Anybody there?"

She waited patiently as he slowly crossed his way into the living room, still shining his flashlight into the room. "Hello!"

Wait for it, wait for it. . .

Suddenly, four armed swat members popped out from behind the doorway to the dining room, all with loaded guns pointing at Richard.

"FBI! Freeze! Get down on the ground!" The men all shouted at him.

Caroline lunged forward and tackled the skinny man, knocking him onto a nearby couch. She pinned him down on his back, her legs securing from the sides. She used one hand to press his face into the suede fabric of the couch while the other pulled out the shiny silver handcuffs that had been hidden in her back pocket.

"Richard Slessman, FBI." She said as she cuffed him. "You are under arrest for the kidnapping of Heather Woodland."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Police officers, CSI techs, and FBI agents flooded the Slessman house, trying to find some evidence of Heather's whereabouts. So far, Caroline and the B.A.U had nothing.

She stood anxiously near the front door, pacing back and forth on the flower-print mat in the entrance. She knew they were running out of time to find Heather and if they couldn't find anything here, they'd have nothing. Again.

It infuriated her how little they had to go on, yet again. They didn't have time to search the crummy house. Heather was depending on them to save her. . .

"There's no sign of the girl here," Reid told Caroline as he walked down the stairs, being followed by Gideon, who seemed just about as happy as she was about the whole situation. "We can arrest him with probable cause, but we won't be able to hold him. Slessman has been at the top of the suspect list."

She sighed, resigned. Of course, there was nothing. That would make her job too easy if they had anything to go on.

Gideon and Reid stood beside her, clearly as exhausted as she was. None of them had any sleep since yesterday. It was starting to take a toll.

Gideon glanced down the hallway at the elderly woman sitting at the kitchen table with the mother and child behind her, all of them looking shocked and confused at all the chaos.

"Is that the mother?" Gideon asked.

Before either Reid or Caroline could answer, a pretty Hispanic woman with long dark hair stepped out of the living room.

"Grandmother." She told him confidently. "The mother died in a fire when he was 13."

Gideon looked at her, his face scrunching up in confusion. "Who are you?"

Caroline smiled at the woman assuringly before turning to Gideon. "Sir, this is Agent Elle Greenaway, with the sex crimes unit. Elle, this is Special Agent Jason Gideon with the BAU."

"Hello, sir, it's an honor to--"

"That probably wasn't the only fire in Slessman's childhood." Gideon murmured, completely ignoring Elle to head into the dining room.

Elle cast Caroline a confused and exasperated look and she gave her an apologetic glance as they all followed him.

That was just the way Gideon is. It wasn't anything against Agent Greenaway, whenever he has a case, he focuses on with all he has. This typically leads to him ignoring the people around him as a result.

"Before his Son of Sam murders, David Berkowitz set a multitude of fires," Reid told Caroline as a smile formed on his mouth. He loved spouting facts to anyone who would listen, which in this case it was her. But she didn't mind. She actually liked listening to him talk about how many cows live in Montana or the types of STDs found in most teenagers. It was just him.

"Exactly how many is a multitude?" Elle asked him.

"According to his diary, 1,400 and--"

"88." Caroline finished for him. When the boy genius gave her a shocked look, she replied with, "What? I read too, Reid."

"Luring him out was your idea, right? Greenaway?" Gideon asked the female agent standing beside her. "You chose Agent Lucas to lure him out, correct?"

"Elle." She told Gideon. "And yes, it was my idea. I don't send a SWAT team into a house with children. And Caroline seemed like the best bait because she's 22--the exact age of our victim, Heather Woodland. He would feel compelled to help her out, she's his type."

"Agent Lucas says your background is in sex offender cases. What can you tell us?"

"The last four murders show he's an anger-excitation rapist," Elle explained to them. "He'll keep a victim for a couple of days. He probably videotapes them so that he can keep reliving the fantasy."

"You okay with Hotch being in on the interview?" Gideon asked her.

"I'd like him to lead, actually."

"FIne. But hold off." Gideon instructed her. "Slessman's done time, and he knows the process. And all you will get now is a demand for a lawyer."

And just like that, Gideon was gone with Reid in tow, searching the attic.

Caroline turned to Elle and gave her a reassuring smile.

"So, how'd I do?" She asked the blonde girl, grinning confidently at her. "Pretty good, right?"

"If you keep this up, the job is as good as yours, Elle."

"Thanks, Care. See you after the interrogation?"

She nodded as Agent Greenaway disappeared into the kitchen. Caroline smiled a little bit as she headed upstairs to search the attic.

Elle Greenaway had been vying for the open spot in the BAU for weeks now. She had known the sex crimes agent from a couple of cases they had worked together on when Caroline first started out at the BAU. Elle was highly intelligent and good at reading people, but a little on the impulsive side, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the case.

But she recommended Greenaway because she was a good agent and she deserved the spot. She worked hard for it.

Caroline walked up the dusty stairs to the attic, her heels clicking on the hardwood softly. She peeked at the attic when she got to the top.

The room was cluttered with random items: mannequins, coaches, chairs, TVs, magazines, old game boards, and anything else the Slessman family had collected over the years. In the center of the attic were a couple of plush armchairs arranged around a TV, whose only channel was static, and a small end table placed between the two chairs. On top of the table was a board game Reid seemed particularly fascinated with.

"What kind of game is it?" She asked Spencer Reid she approached him. She stood beside him as both he and Gideon stared hard at the game board.

The wooden game board had been partitioned off into 120 equal-distant squares. Every so often, a square would either have a black game piece or a white one. Most of the black pieces stuck to the side, while the white seemed to intermingle with the black, trying to take over.

"In China, it's called Wei-Chi," Reid told her as he glared at the board, tilting his head as he thought. "Here we call it _'Go_ '. It's considered to be the most difficult board game ever conceived."

"Chairman Mao required his generals to learn it," Gideon said.

"It also looks like he's been playing himself."

"How can you tell? Caroline asked him, staring at the game board confused.

Reid reached down and spun the board lightly. The board twirled around slowly and then she saw it. On the opposite side of the board, the pieces mirrored each other exactly. Slessman had been playing himself.

"This might provide an advantage, actually," Reid said. " _Go_ is considered to be a particularly psychologically revealing game. There are profiles for every player—the conservative point counter, the aggressor, the finesse. . ."

"What kind of player is Slessman?" She asked.

Reid examined the board closely before looking at Caroline with a grim look on his face.

"An extreme aggressor."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! This story is also on Wattpad, under the same name and same username (nightclxuds). I post there more regularly but I will try to get all the chapters transferred over to AO3.
> 
> I also want to note that I started writing this when I was 15. It's been four years and I'd like to imagine that my writing has gotten better over these past four years. The first few chapters are consistent with my old writing style, but newer chapters contain more of my writing style now. These chapters are also not beta'd or editted. I'll get around to it someday.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this story. I love my Sparoline babies so much it physically pains me and they deserve every and more.


	3. The Abyss

**"** _When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you._ **"**

**— _Friedrich Nietzsche_** _  
_

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**THERE USED TO BE** a time where Caroline was normal—happy, even. That was when she had life all figured out—graduate high school at 16, go M.I.T. or Harvard in order to become something profound, something her parents would be proud of—like a surgeon or a lawyer. That was then when she had parents to be proud of her. This was now.

Before her grandmother passed, she used to recite a quote to her every time she visited her.

" _Damned be the person who abandons all faith. For without faith, there is no hope_."

Caroline had lost faith a long, long time ago when she was a scared, lost sixteen-year-old girl who thought someone was going to come to save her. When they never did, she broke inside. Nothing anyone could see, but she could feel it inside her—that small space in the back of her mind that is always raw, always painful. It never goes away. It has been eating away at her, stealing everything. It had stolen her hope for something better. She couldn't let that happen to somebody else too.

She needed to have some hope in order to save Heather Woodland.

Caroline leaned over Derek Morgan's shoulder as he stared at Richard Slessman's computer in deep concentration. The only thing pulled up on the screen was the login window asking for a password. At the bottom of the screen, a pale green ' **6** ' in bolded text jumped out at her.

"What's the number 6 at the bottom of the screen mean?" She asked him curiously.

He sighed, rubbing his head, agitated. "Number of password attempts before the program wipes the hard drive."

"There could be an email or a journal on the computer, something that tells us where Heather is." She looked over at him, the computer screen glaring a bright blue light at her. "Do you think you can break in?"

"In 6 tries?" He muttered, shaking his head. "No way."

"Try again. Fail again. Fail better." Gideon said from behind them. Both of the agents turned and saw both Reid and Gideon standing near Slessman's bookcase. In their hands were books that looked worn down and used—probably the unsub's favorites. They had to have just entered the room because they weren't in here earlier.

"Samuel Beckett," Reid told them when he saw their confused faces.

"Try not. Do or do not." Derek replied before turning his attention back to the computer.

Gideon's face scrunched up in confusion when he didn't recognize the quote and turned to Caroline and Reid.

"Yoda." She told him before he shrugged and reached for another book on the shelf.

She glanced around the room, processing what it looked like. The small bed was pushed into the corner, the sheets all tucked in nice and neat. Everything else mimicked that—books alphabetized on the bookshelf, clothes folded and organized into drawers, trash picked up and cleaned—and it made no sense. Everything in the profile pointed that the killer was organized and Slessman definitely was, but he wasn't clean about his kills. He didn't pick up after himself after murdering; he still left the belt on their necks and didn't clean up the crime scene around the victims.

Slessman had a classic case of OCD and the Seattle Strangle didn't have any signs of it. It didn't match up.

Another thing that was bothering Caroline was his room. The profile said the unsub would be confident, most likely overcompensating for something. This room looked more like a boy's room than a man's. There were no manly effects anywhere—no playboy magazines, no sign of personality anywhere. This room mimicked Richard Slessman's behavior and it was telling her that he was demure, shy. Even if he was trying to sell a car, there'd be no way he could get a woman in the vehicle for a test drive. He wouldn't have the confidence. It made no sense.

So far, the only thing the profile has gotten right was the Jeep Cherokee that Hotch and Gideon found earlier in the garage and that was it. Everything else was wrong and out of place. It almost seemed like two separate personalities at this point.

Then, it was like a light bulb went off in her head. She gasped and reached for the closest thing to her, which happened to be Reid's arm.

She latched onto him with both hands, gripping onto him tightly, her eyes wide and her adrenaline pumping.

"Ouch, Care! What happened?" He asked her, looking slightly concerned for his friend. Everyone looked over at her, confused at her jumpiness.

"We've been looking at this all wrong." She told them as calm as she could manage. "So far, Slessman only matches half the profile, if that. It's like he has two personalities, or—"

"There's a second unsub," Gideon said slowly once he realized what she was saying.

"Exactly."

He looked over at her and nodded. "Caroline, find Agent Greenaway and come with me back to the field office. I think you may have just blown this case wide open."

As Gideon left, she looked down at Reid's arm that she had been holding onto with white knuckles and she blushed as pulled away, embarrassed from her excitement.

"Sorry, I forget how much you don't like being touched." She apologized to him, still blushing.

He smiled at her and like that, she just stopped. Everything around her seemed to freeze like the world had stopped revolving for a moment. She couldn't hear anything except a static buzz in her ear, drowning out everyone's voices but his.

His smile wasn't normal, it was beautiful. So beautiful that it caused her whole world to stop in the one moment because in this big, messed up world they lived in, the horrors they see every day, still haven't affected him. His smile was still his smile and it had rooted her to the floorboards, rendering her useless.

"No, no, it's—it's okay." He chuckled lightly, tucking a small strand of hair behind his ear. "I—I, uh...don't mind if—if it's, uh, you."

"What?" She asked, blinking a couple of times as she shook off her stupor. She had been so distracted, she barely heard what he had said.

"Uh, nothing. Nothing."

"Oh, okay. See you later, I guess then?"

"Yeah. Be...be safe."

She gave him a small smile and nodded before she headed downstairs to the SUV where Gideon awaited.

Caroline fought the butterflies fluttering around in her stomach as she jogged down the stairs. After six months, she really thought that all those things had disappeared—the butterflies, the glances. She hoped they had stopped. Even if they didn't work for the FBI, it could never happen. She couldn't because there was no way she could ever be ready. There was no way the He would ever leave her alone. The man who ruined her life haunts her every day—her dreams became nightmares and her mind became stuck in a state of constant fear. He took everything from her, and that included her ability to be with another human being, to be able to love someone.

And that meant Caroline could never be with Spencer Reid and that shattered her heart more than anything else in the whole entire world.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"A second unsub?" Elle asked doubtfully as she trailed behind Hotch, Gideon, and Caroline walking into the field office. She brushed past agents running around in the central lobby in a rush. They only had a few hours left.

Heather only had a few hours left.

"It's not unusual. Remember Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris?" Gideon prodded her, testing her knowledge.

"1979. They outfitted a van to rape and murder girls in California."

He had been doing that the whole car ride to the field office, asking Elle questions and testing her skills. So far, she had been doing fairly well, maybe even better than expected.

She remembered when she was first brought up for the BAU. It was before Adrian Bale and the bombings when Gideon was the Unit Chief instead of Hotch, but he still worked as a Supervisory Special Agent. Reid and Derek weren't even on the team back then. They first met because of her parents' murder.

She had been groomed for the BAU ever since she was sixteen and the FBI discovered she had an IQ of 178 (according to mandated tests they made her take), could speak several languages, and was able to interrogate and obtain information from every person they threw at her. She was too dangerous to not be put anywhere else, and it was the only thing she really wanted to do.

Caroline's life had been fast-tracked after that. She was already graduating high school at sixteen so the government didn't get involved with that, but they did everything else. When she got admissions into M.I.T., she was also enrolled in the FBI training program as well at the young age of seventeen. She broke almost every record there was for every training exercise before graduating from M.I.T. and being transferred into Georgetown to take specialized classes. She even invented a new interrogation technique that helps resurface details from old, or new, memories called a cognitive interview using the senses to aid in memory recollection.

When she turned twenty-one, she graduated with degrees in behavioral education, specializing in body language as well as behavior, and specializing in psychopathy. After that, she was immediately assessed and placed in the BAU.

She could still remember the question Gideon asked her that first day she was placed in the FBI.

" _Are you ready_?"

It was the first question Caroline didn't know the answer to. Still doesn't know.

Because even after working the job for a year, she wasn't used to the horrible sights she sees every day. She didn't think she ever would. Sometimes, it makes her wonder if she made the right call on her career.

Could she do this for the rest of her life?

"We're looking for someone who fits a similar relationship?" Hotch asked, shaking Caroline out of her daze. She refocused on the conversation.

"They're not equals," Gideon said. "Slessman's smart, but he is a submissive personality."

"So number 2 is dominant?" Elle inquired.

Caroline nodded, dodging people as she walked down the stairs. "Yes. He will be authoritative, arrogant. Definitely not as smart as Slessman."

"He's like the schoolyard bully recruiting a good underling. He'll be protective of Richard." Gideon surmised. "He'll make him feel like he owes him."

"If Richard has been upstairs in that attic fantasizing about being an extreme aggressor, this guy showed him how to do it." She explained, pulling back her blonde hair with a black hair-tie. "He helped him take the first step."

"I think we should interview him, use this as pressure," Elle suggested to Gideon.

"No, no. We need leverage, a name." He said.

"From the suspect list?"

He shook his head. "That'll take too long. There's gotta be a faster way."

Caroline glanced up and focused on the lobby area, where Ms. Slessman was sitting, wringing her wrinkled hands nervously in her lap while her eyes shifted side to side, watching the agents that passed by her almost obsessively like she wanted to say something.

That was the body language of someone who had something to say.

The blonde girl smiled at her team and nodded towards the old woman.

"There is."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline stood beside Gideon quietly, the two of them watching Hotch and Elle speaking to Ms. Slessman behind the window blinds of the next room. They had connected a video feed through Hotch's jacket sleeve, picking up the conversation.

"Ms. Slessman, does Richard have any friends?" Elle asked her calmly, her voice sounding a little grainy through the feedback of the mic.

"Richard never had many friends." The old woman told her, her hands clutching the cup of coffee they had given her early. Her hands shook slightly like she was cold, but that was probably from deoxygenation from the cannula laced to her nose.

There had to be someone. Heather Woodland's life depended on it.

"You sure?" Hotch asked her, equally as calm. "There has to be someone."

"Well..." The old woman began to speak slowly like she was thinking. "There was—there was this one young man. I think his name was Charlie."

The moment she heard that name, ice shot through Caroline's veins, freezing her in place.

 _Charlie_ , she thought to herself, _Oh, Charlie_...

Suddenly, she was brought to another time, the FBI field office melting away in front of her before being replaced with a large, fenced-in backyard with tall green grass and a flower garden pushed to the side, filled with yellow daisies. A little boy was running through the grass wildly, his fingers glazing over the tall blades of grass. He was laughing to himself, probably about some stupid joke he made up all by himself. He was so happy.

He looked serene, like a child out of the movies. His smoothed back blonde hair glistened in the sun and his green eyes sparkled with childish delight. He couldn't have been older than ten, maybe younger. He was dressed in his Sunday-best: a buttoned-down white shirt, tailored black slacks and shiny, and polished black dress shoes. He kept getting his nice clothes dirty with mud as he ran through the grass, caking his pants and shirt, but she couldn't bear to scold him. He was just having some fun. He deserved to have some fun with what he's been through.

The boy smiled at her, revealing his small, white teeth. He laughed and motioned her forward. " _Come play with me, sissy_!"

But, like before, she was rooted in place. She so badly wanted to reach out and dust the dirt off of his white shirt, but she couldn't reach him. He was too far away.

" _Care-bear, come on! Come play with me_!"

She smiled a little as she watched him dance around, running like a little Indian in the wild grasslands. She just wanted to touch him, to feel him, one more time. Just so she'd know he was real. That he used to exist. Just one more time...

"Charlie..." She whispered softly to herself, her body riddling with guilt. "I'm so sorry. It was all my fault—all my fault."

Then, the sound of Gideon's voice shook Caroline out of her dream. The full force of reality hit her mind and eyes like bricks, weighing heavily on both.

Suddenly, she was back at the FBI field office in Seattle with Gideon. She sighed, disappointment and anguish revolting inside of her.

She had lost Charlie. Again.

"What was that, sir?" Caroline asked Gideon as calmly as she could manage, trying to shake herself out of it.

"I said cross-reference Charlie for the second unsub." He told her as her fingers began to type the name into the computer in front of them. She was vaguely aware of him staring at her, assessing, but she ignored him.

She was allowed one break from reality, but that was it. She had to focus.

An image of a tall, balding man with large biceps popped up on the screen. He was holding a jail identification card and he wasn't smiling.

 _I wonder why,_ Caroline thought to herself as she began to read the information on the screen.

"Charlie is probably Charles Linder," she said as she skimmed through the files. "He was Slessman's cellmate and received a dishonorable discharge from the military."

"He's bigger, tougher. He could have protected Richard in prison. Where were they incarcerated?"

She clicked through a few more files until she found what she wanted. "Uh...Cascadia. Less than a mile from here."

Gideon looked at her and nodded. "Let's go."

Caroline exited out of the screen as fast as she could and followed the profiler out. 

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

The sound of metal weights hitting the tiled floor of the prison rang in Caroline's ears, while the smell of dirt and sweat almost made her eyes water. She glanced around from the balcony where she and Gideon were standing, quietly watching all the orange jumpsuits go about their daily activities during free time. A lot of the prisoners chose to do some form of exercise, like lifting weights or doing push-ups, but a couple of them were cowering in some obscene, dark corner with their noses in a book. Just like Richard Slessman would've done. It would've been easy to gain his trust—a skinny white boy in a tough block prison. He would've been the weakest link, the easiest to pick on. The most afraid.

Until the unsub protected him and helped him commit murders.

"Is there anyone who can tell us more about Slessman?" Gideon asked the prison warden beside him as his eyes scanned the crowd.

The prison warden scratched his balding scalp and his beady eyes squinting tightly as he thought. "Tim Vogel was the security guard covering Slessman's block." He pointed a wrinkled, knobby finger at a tall, blond, and reasonably buff security guard with a tight face and wary eyes in the corner of the prison lobby. "That's him over there. I can get him to you."

Just then, her phone began to ring. Caroline reached for it, digging through her leather jacket pocket for her cell. She pulled it out and pressed the answer button before being the phone up to her ear. She brushed some of her blonde hair out of the way and plugged her other ear, canceling out the long clangs of metal clashing in the background so she could hear.

" _Caroline?_ " Hotch's voice buss through the receiver. " _Are you at Cascadia?_ "

"Yes, sir. We're just about to talk to the security guard in charge of Linder and Slessman's cell block," she informed him.

" _Yeah, about Linder. Reid found his name on a police report._ " Hotch paused at the other end. She could hear him breathing into the receiver before he spoke again. " _He died in a car accident 2 months ago._ "

And just like that, her resolve crumbled.

"You got to be kidding me." She muttered, mostly to herself.

Caroline gritted her teeth and refrained from tearing her hair out. There was no way Linder could be the unsub, not even for the past murders, much less Heather Woodland's disappearance. The timelines didn't match.

They had one lead. One. The one lifeline they had for Heather Woodland was gone, just like that. They were back to square one.

" _Just continue with the interview of the jail guard,_ " Hotch told her. " _We'll keep looking on our side. Good luck._ "

Caroline pressed the end call button aggressively and shoved the phone back into her jacket pocket, trying her best not to seem agitated as she approached Gideon, who had been oblivious to the whole phone call.

"That was Hotch. Linder's name came up on a police report."

"And?" He prompted, his face expectant.

"He's dead," she replied, trying to seem indifferent. She couldn't let a set-back cloud her judgment. Until she found Heather, dead or alive, she needed to be objective. "Car accident, 2 months ago. Linder is dead."

She watched Gideon's face fall and she saw, for split second, the same disappointment she felt plastered onto his face before disappearing behind a calm facade. At least she wasn't the only one who felt bad about it. Somehow, that made her feel better. The feeling didn't last long.

That sicko was still out there and they didn't have much time left. It was hard to feel optimistic, especially when Reid spouts odds about kidnapping cases to her like he's an encyclopedia. Odds were this case was going to end with a death, and that was how she and the team were going to find the unsub.

Caroline was going to have to accept the fact that this case might end up in Heather Woodland's murder.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"Too bad you guys came here for nothing," Vogel, Slessman's former prison guard, told Gideon and Caroline as he escorted them out. The questioning went as well as drying paint—boring and uneventful. It didn't help that Timothy Vogel was as boring and helpful as a wet paper bag. "I mean, talk about scum. I can't remember how many times I put Linder in solitary for causing trouble with us."

The guard reached for his keys hanging off his belt as they approached the gate. They were connected to his belt with a thin metal zip tie, the chord only going about as far as a foot away from his body. Caroline's eyes focused on the assorted keys and keychains in his hands as he unlocked the gate. He had way too many keys necessary—all of them clustered together, clinking together. Something caught her eye, but Vogel had already unlocked the gate and was putting away his keys before she could ask him about it. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"You'd think the inmates would try to stay on our good side, right?" He continued to mumble as they walked through the prison. She was starting to feel something deep in the pit of her stomach, something pulling at her. "Especially since half our job is protecting them from each other."

"You protect them?" Gideon asked curiously. Vogel hadn't mentioned any of this in their interview. This was all new information.

"If you're a little white guy, especially in a prison like this," he told him, staring him dead in the eyes. Caroline's hairs stood on ends and her heart began to race. Her instincts were telling her to run, but she stayed rooted beside Gideon.

"Linder was 6'4". Are you talking about Slessman?"

Vogel glanced back at him from unlocking the last gate and nodded, muttering, "Oh, yeah."

Gideon and Caroline exchanged a look before she curtly replied to the guard with, "Thanks for your help."

The moment the two profilers stepped outside, they began to work.

"Vogel befriended Richard, protected him, made him feel like he owed him," Gideon told her, walking quickly to the car. "He's our unsub."

"He fits the profile." She agreed as she began to fish for her phone in her pockets. "Did you see his keys? There was a keychain for a Datsun Z hanging off of it."

She found her phone the moment the two of them reached the car. She speed-dialed Hotch's number as she unlocked the car and climbed in the driver's seat, pressing the phone between her shoulder and ear while the phone rang. He answered on the third ring.

"Caroline?" Her boss's voice came over the phone as she started the car, Gideon sitting in the passenger's seat. "What did you get?"

"Hotch, we just found your leverage." She told him. "His name is Timothy Vogel."

Just then, she saw a bright orange Datsun Z drive out of the guard's parking lot, leaving the prison. She glanced over at Gideon, handing him the phone. He pressed it to his ear before speaking.

"He's on the move. Nobody moves until we say so."

And with that, he hung up and handed her phone back to her. The two shared a quick look before Caroline put the car in drive and pulled out of the parking lot, following Timothy Vogel into the night.

 _We're coming, Heather_ , she thought to herself, _Hang in there_.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴  
  


Caroline bit her lip as she thought. They had been following Vogel for fifteen minutes now. So far, everything seemed normal. And that gave her a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach. This wasn't right.

"There's something wrong." She told Gideon as she followed the orange car down the street. "We have to pull him over. I can feel it."

And when she felt it, she felt it hard. After years of dealing with psychopaths and killers, her instincts had grown to be entwined with them, alerting her to when something wasn't right. They were never wrong.

"Do you want to know the word the word used to describe you in your file?" Gideon asked her. She glanced over at him, taken back.

"You've read my file?"

"Impulsive. You follow your instincts, not facts. You wanna stop him, you give me a reason first."

She swallowed, still a little startled by the fact Gideon had been reading up in her file, but she got herself together.

"His behavior. When we left Vogel, he was nervous, unsettled. But now, he's stopping at every stop sign, he's using his blinker at every turn, he's slowing at yellow lights." She explained to him as she tailed the car through an abandoned road. "This is not someone who is rushing to kill and dump a body."

It was silent for half a second as he deliberated.

"I forget that your file also says you're one of the most brilliant agents in the Bureau." He told her. "Go on, do it."

She smiled a little as she sounded the sirens and turned on the flashing red-and-blue lights.

Did her file really say that?

Vogel started slowing down the moment Caroline had turned on the lights. He carefully pulled onto the shoulder of the road before coming to a complete stop. She pulled up right behind him, reaching for her holstered gun hanging on her right hip as she and Gideon got out of the car slowly.

She raised her government-issued gun at eye-level with Gideon coping her movements beside her. She put on foot in front of the other as she carefully walked towards the stalled car.

"FBI!" Caroline called to the car. "Put your hands up where we can see them!" When there was no movement, she repeated the command. "Put your hands through the window now! _Now_!"

Then, a pair of hands slowly raised from inside the car, sticking up straight, almost defensively. After checking that he was clear with weapons, she looked over at Gideon, who nodded for her to continue.

"All right, now, with your left hand, I want you to open the car door from the outside."

Immediately, the guy obeyed, his left hand carefully reached down and grabbed the silver door handle from the outside. He pulled the car door open and that's when Gideon snaked forward and yanked the door open, throwing the driver on the pavement. He pinned him down, his gun trained at the back of his head.

Immediately, Caroline could tell this wasn't Vogel. This guy had short black hair and had a smaller stature than the unsub. He escaped.

"It's not him." She told Gideon, bolstering her gun back on her hip.

"Where is he?" He yelled at the guy pinned underneath him. "Where is he?

"Who?" The poor man sounded terrified.

"Vogel!"

"I don't know!"

"What are you doing driving his car?"

"He came up to me in the garage after our shift ended." He groaned in pain, moaning in discomfort. "He asked if he could borrow my truck."

Ice ran through her veins and stood frozen in her place. Gideon looked up at her and they both came to the same conclusion.

"He's dumping the body." She told him. His face immediately shifted, becoming more panicked, angrier.

"What's the make?" He yelled at the man, pressing his gun harder against the back of his head. "What's the make?"

"Dodge! Dodge Dakota!"

Caroline and Gideon didn't waste any more time. They both took off towards the car, leaving Vogel's coworker lying on the ground.

Suddenly, it became a race against time. And if they lost, Heather would be dead.

Caroline shot down the roads, hitting over sixty miles an hour as Gideon answered a call from Derek Morgan.

"Heather's alive!" Derek's voice buzzed through the phone intensely.

"How do you know that?" Caroline asked him as she exited the woods by making a sharp right turn that caused her stomach to drop.

"Because we're watching her right now." He told them. "Reid and I were able to hack into the computer. Slessman has a camera set up. It looks like they're keeping her on some kind of boat."

"A boat? Where?" Gideon asked.

"We—we can't tell! There's no markers."

She groaned. She had absolutely no idea where she was going. She couldn't keep driving around in circles, Seattle is a coast city. There are docks and piers everywhere. By the time the get through all of them, Heather will be

"What about Hotch?" Caroline questioned him, her nerves fraying. "Has he questioned Slessman yet?"

"We told him the information, but he hasn't gotten back to us—no, wait!" Derek exclaimed. "Hotch cracked Slessman. He says go to Allied Shipyard."

Caroline checked the GPS and glanced over at Gideon, relief almost filling her body.

"Send in backup, Morgan." She told him as she blared the sirens. "We're five minutes away from the shipyard."

_They got him._

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline shut off the car as she parked at the shipyard. Everything was quiet, almost peaceful. If only. Gideon nodded to her as they both pulled out their guns and got out of the car.

The place reeked of sea salt and fish. The dock boards creaked and crackled under her heels, threatening to give in. There were boats docked everywhere—ranging from yachts to fishing vessels. It wasn't boating season yet in Seattle, and that made it harder to determine which boat was the unsub's. But, given neither Vogel nor Slessman were rich, the boat had to be low class. They couldn't afford anything else.

Her heart pounded as she shut her door softly, trying not to alert the unsub of their presence. If Vogel knew they were here, he could kill Heather before they could get to her. That wasn't a risk she was willing to make.

The blonde girl looked over at her superior and the man nodded his head towards the ramp heading towards the back of the shipyard, giving her a clear view of all the boats docked at the yard. And, if it came down to it, she could fire a clean shot if she needed to. She was the trained sniper on the team.

Caroline nodded back to her boss and began trekking up the dock as Gideon headed straight. He disappeared behind a stack of rotted crates and she suddenly felt all alone. The silence overwhelmed her, consumed her...

This was what Heather felt. That debilitating sense of loneliness. It smothers you until you can't feel anything, leaving you almost senseless. There's no noise, there's no tears, there's just nothing.

And every second she was here on this dock, Heather was alone and terrified. She had to find her.

Caroline felt her phone vibrate against her leg. She exhaled quietly, not realizing she had been holding her breath, before pulling out her phone and pressing the answer button. She kept her gun trained in front of her, not shifting her focus.

"Hello?" She whispered in the phone, checking behind a stack of boxes.

"Caroline? Are you at the shipyard already?" Derek asked her, sounding worried.

"Yes."

"Listen to me. You need to wait for backup."

"If we wait, Heather is dead." She murmured, continuing to make her way through the dock. So far, nothing suspicious.

"And if we had waited in Boston—"

"I can't, Derek!" Caroline exclaimed. "You told me a long time ago that I should trust my instincts. Well, they're going off like crazy. If we don't find her now, she's dead."

"But Boston—"

"Was a tragedy. We lost 6 agents. But, this, Derek, is not one of those times. I won't let it be."

And with that, she hung up the call and stuffed her phone back down in her pocket, ignoring the incoming calls from her coworker.

When she reached the back of the shipyard, she canvassed the area. Where was Gideon? He was supposed to send a signal if he found something. Suddenly, she was terrified if something had happened to him.

 _No_ , she told herself calmingly, _he's fine. Just find the unsub_.

And that's when she saw it. Gideon was standing a deck below her with his gun trained on Vogel, who had a crying Heather in his arms with a gun aimed at her forehead. The adhesive tape he used to cover her eyes had been pushed to cover her forehead and she limped on her left leg like she had injured it somehow—maybe from attempting to escape? She had a little blood on her shirt, but nothing too concerning. Besides being terrified, she seemed okay, physically at least. She was alive.

Caroline clambered down the deck as quickly and as quietly as she could, hiding behind a stack of barrels behind Vogel, not daring to make a sound. She rested the butt of the gun on the top of a barrel and trained it on Vogel's back, waiting for the right moment to take the shot.

"Get back!" Vogel screamed at Gideon, pressing the gun harder into Heather's temple. She whimpered. "I'll shoot her. I swear I will."

"I wouldn't. If I were you, I'd aim the gun at me." He told the unsub calmly, his gun still aimed at him. "You shoot the girl, you got nothing."

The unsub's teeth clenched together. "Get...back!"

"Shoot me instead." Gideon taunted him. "Come on. What, are you a lousy shot?" He raised his hands up in the air, his gun facing away from Vogel. "50 feet away. You got a perfect shot. Shoot me."

Caroline swallowed, watching him expose himself to a shot. She knew he was just trying to distract him, but it made her nervous. Just one wrong move...

But she kept her gun trained on Vogel's back. In a year of being in the BAU, she had never killed anyone. She definitely had shot people, she was a trained sniper and marksman. She was trusted with all the weapons, and that included high-power rifles. She's shot unsubs from a mile away with deadly accuracy, but she wasn't aiming for a fatal shot. The moment she takes a life, she was afraid she would become just like the monsters she fights so hard to put away.

Would this be the night she had to kill someone?

"You think I'm stupid?" Vogel spat at Gideon, tightening his grip around Heather as she tried to struggle her way free. She cried out when he squeezed a little too tight.

"I think you're an absolute moron." He said, laughing. "I know all about you, Tim. You're at the gym 5 times a week. You drive a flashy car, you stink of cologne, and you can't get it up."

Vogel was seething. His hand wrapped around the gun aimed at Heather was shaking, and his face twitched—his eyes narrowing with rage. Gideon struck a nerve.

"Not even Viagra's workin' for you. You know what that tells me?" He asked him, taunting him. "That tells me you are hopelessly compensating, and it's not just in your head. It is physical. What did the girls cal you in highs school? What'd they come up with when you fumbled your way into some girl's pants and she started laughing when she got a good look at just how little you had to offer?"

"Shut up!"

"Short stack? Very little Vogel? No, wait, I got it. Tiny Tim."

Vogel became enraged. He shoved Heather out of the way and focused his gun on Gideon. A shot rang out and Caroline tensed. She quickly adjusted her aim to Vogel's legs, and fired twice, knocking Vogel down on the dock. She fired a third shot through his right hand, making him drop the gun.

She couldn't do it. She couldn't kill him. Not when there was another way. She still wanted to hold on to that part of herself.

She emerged from her hiding spot and assessed the scene. Vogel was sitting on the dock, clutching his hand and moaning in pain. She walked over to him and kicked his gun out of his reach before reaching down and whacking him on the top of his head, knocking him out. He stopped moaning as his body went slack.

She looked over at Heather, who was screaming a few feet away from Vogel's unconscious body. She was terrified, her eyes completely trained on him like he was going to hurt her.

And then there was Gideon, leaning against the docks, his face scrunched up in pain.

 _No_.

"Gideon!" Caroline called out, racing towards him. He leaned over, cradling his left arm, taking deep breaths. She could see the small, bloody bullet hole in the center of his arm. Over Heather's sobs, she could hear sirens in the distance. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." He told her, smiling contently. He looked over and nodded to Heather. "Go look after the girl."

Caroline stood up once she knew Gideon's wound was superficial and jogged over to Heather. She was sobbing and shaking, pacing across the deck.

All she did was wrap her arms around the poor woman, and Heather turned and began to sob in her shoulder. She could feel her shaking, her whole body shivering as if she was cold. Caroline petted her dirty, greasy hair soothingly, holding her like she would a child as she screamed.

She was alive, but at what cost? What happened to her, she will never forget. Always paranoid, always terrified. She will never be able to trust anyone ever again. But she was alive.

And that was the only thing that will get her through this. She survived, she won.

That was the only way she would be able to live again.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

The chatter from the police radios and the flashing red and blue lights coming off the ambulance rang in Caroline's ears. She leaned against the railing on the dock, her eyes locked on Gideon and Heather talking near the ambulance. The paramedics had wrapped her in a gray fleece blanket and cleaned up her wounds to where she looked somewhat normal again. There was still that empty, tired set to her face, but nothing was going to fix that. She would know. But, somehow, the paramedics were able to convince Gideon to get his arm looked at, it was bandaged appropriately and cleaned.

She was just grateful it was a superficial wound and not a serious one. She couldn't bear for someone else to get hurt.

Caroline heard someone approach her and she felt the railing on her right give in a little as someone stood beside her. She glanced over and saw Hotch, who was standing there with his arms crossed and his eyes on Gideon.

"So, what kind of report do they want on him?" She asked as the wind started to pick up, her blonde hair swirling around lightly with the wind. The sun had risen a couple of hours after back-up arrived and the morning was just now starting and that included the windy weather.

Hotch looked over at her, his face somber. "How did you—? You know what, I should've known you would find out about it."

"So it's true? There is a report?"

"It's just an assessment of whether he's fit to be a field agent." He sighed and looked over at her, tugging on her jacket as the wind picked up. "You know, Haley and I were looking at a baby names book. Guess what Gideon means in Hebrew."

"Mighty warrior. Seems appropriate." She told him, smiling a little when she saw how taken-aback he was with her answer. "What? I've been through that book with Haley a million times. I don't need an eidetic memory to know things."

He chuckled and shook his head. Off in the distance, the seagulls cawed at the early morning sun.

"So what are you going to tell them?"

"What would you say?"

Caroline watched Gideon standing beside Heather, checking on her still. Somehow he had managed to make her smile.

The blonde girl felt something flutter in her heart, chasing away all the darkness that she sees daily clustered around there. She felt her face lift slightly, her mouth pulled into a small smile.

"Gideon saved her life." She told Hotch calmly. "That's good enough for me."

And then, she stood up and walked towards the vans, ready to go home.

Before climbing into the black SUV, she stopped and turned back around, her hand resting on the car door handle.

Besides all the crime scene tech people and the ambulance, the scene was almost peaceful. The still water, the bright white sun hanging in the sky, reflecting its rays on the ocean. There weren't many calm days like this anymore.

Today was a good day. Days like today made life bearable for her. Days like today chased away the bad ones, all the bad memories, and crimes. Days like today made life worth living again. Days like today give her hope. Days like today made proved being alive was worth it. That it can be worth it.

Today was a good day.   
  


➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

The sound of Reid's snores kept Caroline awake on the plane. The loud intake and the soft exhale of his breath was starting to drive her wild. They had another five hours on the plane before they landed in Quantico, and she wanted to spend all of them sleeping.

She stretched her arms outwards, interlocking her fingers and pressing them forward. She felt her fingers pop and she relaxed them back at her sides, resting back in her chair. She shed her blazer and tossed her heels in the chair beside her as she curled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

Almost like she couldn't help herself, Caroline found herself watching Reid as he slept. His long legs were bent, his knees hanging off the couch because he was too tall to stretch all the way out across. His hands were tucked neatly under his head, using his leather bag to prop his head up. She could see his eyes moving against his eyelids like he was dreaming. Even in sleep, Dr. Reid doesn't stop thinking. And every time he exhaled, his breath stirred a stray hand of hair that hung over his face, and she so badly wanted to reach across and tuck it away from his face, but she stayed rooted where she was.

She glanced around her, checking to make sure if anyone was awake. Derek was asleep on the couch across from Reid, his headphones plugged in and blasting some contemporary music, probably to lull him to sleep. Gideon was too busy reading to pay attention to what she was doing and Hotch was working on the paperwork for this case, both of them on the opposite end of the plane.

Maybe it was because they saved Heather or she was feeling epic for some reason, but Caroline was ready to talk to him about what happened six months ago. Now was a perfect time because everyone was too preoccupied to listen or interrupt. This was her chance.

Caroline wasn't scared or nervous to bring up the subject, which was strange to her. She just felt...calm.

Maybe it was because she knew that no matter what happened, he was still there. He was still her friend. If Heather could move on with her life after the Seattle Strangler, she could talk to Reid.

Caroline reached over and balled up a piece of paper that had been laying on the table in front of her. She held it carefully with her thumb and forefinger, aiming the wad of paper carefully. She flicked her wrist and the ball of paper thumped Spencer Reid in the head, bounding off his forehead, then his arm, then finally to the floor.

He peeked one eye open and saw Caroline staring at him. He groaned and rubbed his face tiredly as he groggily opened both of his eyes.

"What's up?" He asked her, yawning.

She smiled at him as sat up, stretching his body out. His hair was sticking up wildly in the back, making him look like he had a mohawk. She thought it was probably one of the cutest things she had ever seen.

"Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you."

Reid almost immediately perked up, sitting up straight and focusing on her. He waited for her.

She swallowed. She felt her confidence waiver but she held her ground. She had to get this over with.

"I just...I just wanted to talk about what happened six months ago. You know, between us."

He reached down and scooped up the paper ball she had thrown at him earlier and turned it over in his hands, almost nervously. "Okay."

"I know it's been a while since we've seen each other, but I really feel like we need to talk about it." She began to ramble, her heart fluttering. He was staring at her, his brown eyes piercing hers with startling intensity. She bit her lip, wracking her brain. "But we work together, and I don't want what happened to get between what we do. People depend on us and—"

"Care," Reid said, rubbing his arm nervously, like a tick. She immediately felt bad for putting him in this situation. She should've thought beforehand that this was going to make him uncomfortable. "It—it was just a kiss. It's...it's not a big deal."

She felt her face falter. It was just a kiss? Was that what he really thought? That it wasn't a big deal?

Six months ago, Caroline stayed late at Quantico one night to get ahead on paperwork so she wouldn't have to do it on the weekend. Reid volunteered to stay and help her do half of it so they could both leave early. They had spread the files all across the floor and they sat in the middle of it all, just talking and doing work. Everything was harmless until she accidentally reached for the same file he did. Their hands met and that's when she felt it.

That spark that made her heart race whenever she saw him. The spark that created all those butterflies in her stomach whenever she was near him. The spark that made her felt light-headed whenever they touched. It was that strong, intense attraction she felt every second of every day she was with him.

Her eyes met his and the next thing she knew his lips met hers and she saw fireworks—literally. She had remembered stories her mother told her about her first kiss with her father. She used to say that she felt fireworks and that was how she knew he was the one.

For Caroline, she felt it all. The softness of his lips, the taste of coffee and mint from his breath, the gentleness she felt as they kissed. Her heart was pumping so hard she was surprised he didn't say anything about it. It felt like her heart was going to beat out of her chest at any moment. And she loved every second of it.

But then, she remembered _Him_. How the man who ruined her life was still out there. How no matter what she does, she couldn't be free of that man. How she knew if Reid knew what she had been through, he wouldn't want her anymore.

So, she pulled away, terrified to admit what happened. No, more like she was terrified to admit she had feelings for him.

And she did. Sometimes, it was unbearable how much sometimes.

She could still remember what he looked like when she pulled away—shocked, hurt. If she stayed with him, he would be hurt even worse. She couldn't risk Reid.

"Yeah...no big deal," Caroline repeated softly, glancing down at her hands folded delicately in her lap. "Well, I guess I just wanted to see if we—if we were still friends."

She heard Reid chuckle and she peeked up through her blonde hair to see a small, half-smile that took her breath away on his face.

"Of course, we're still friends, Care," he told her. "Who else would teach me how to cook lasagna?"

"The internet?"

He laughed. "Maybe. But I like your way better."

She smiled and everything felt normal again. Except she didn't want normal. She wanted _him_.

She wanted Reid so badly she could hardly stand it. She wanted to tell him that she liked him and that kiss was a big deal to her. She wanted to tell him everything.

But she knew she couldn't.

Because what happened to her couldn't be reversed. She could never fully give herself to Reid and that's not what he deserved—someone who's there half the time. He deserved so much more than her.

She wished life could be different and she could be with him. She'd give anything to be able to be with him.

But, sometimes, if you look long enough into the abyss, the abyss will look into you. Caroline fell into that abyss six years ago when she was sixteen and she knew those weeks trapped would haunt her forever, taunting her.

She refused to be the person the abyss of darkness destroys. She was going to survive.

Even if it is the last thing she does.


	4. Sixteen

**"** _Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world._ **"**

**— _Albert Einstein_**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**"SHIT!" CAROLINE CURSED** **AS** she stumbled up the porch stairs in her glossy black heels, almost dropping the large cake in her arms. Luckily, she caught herself before she fell face-first into the icing-covered dessert and balanced the box containing the pastry more securely in her arms before continuing to walk up the steps.

Why her Aunt Guinevere decided on a gigantic three-by-three foot cake for the celebration was beyond her. The stupid thing was too large to see around, causing her to trip several times.

Caroline approached the door to the old brown Victorian house. She shifted the weight of the pink and yellow cake to her right arm and reached to knock on the door with her left. But before her knuckles even touched the door, the huge oak doors swung open, revealing her Aunt Guinevere in the doorframe.

The moment she saw her aunt—Caroline was hit with a sudden wave of nostalgia. Her aunt looked so much like her mom, it was astounding. Despite the fact her aunt was older than her younger sister, Caroline's mom, by two years, she had the exact same long blonde hair that passed well below her shoulder blades, the same blue eyes and the same heart-shaped face that her mother has—well, once had.

Caroline was so taken-back she wasn't even able to move or speak.

"Caroline, there you are!" Her aunt beamed at her, wiping her pale hands off on a light blue washcloth. The older woman looked at the huge cake in her arms, ecstatic. "You picked up the cake. Perfect! Just come inside and set it on the table."

The profiler maneuvered her way into the house and her aunt moved out of the way in order for her to carry the cake inside. She passed through the foyer and entered the black-and-white tiled kitchen before setting the cake down on the counter carefully, making sure she wouldn't mess up the precariously frosted pink and yellow icing.

"Aunt G, why did you get a cake that was so big?" Caroline asked her, smoothing back her plaid skirt and quickly fixed the wrinkles in her white blouse.

The blonde girl examined her aunt and she could tell that Aunt Guinevere had been cooking recently because of the flour that clung to the side of her face and the ends of her silvery-blonde hair. It almost made her seem a little washed-out as if the white flour had somehow drowned out whatever color her aunt had on her pale skin. Also, it didn't take a profiler to see the ingredients all spread out on the counter across from her.

"Your sister's birthday is in two days," Aunt Guinevere explained to her as she cleaned up the leftover food she used to cook breakfast earlier that morning, "and it is her sweet sixteen. We are celebrating as a family."

"With a cake that's bigger than her?"

"With a cake that is bigger than her." She nodded enthusiastically.

Caroline rolled her eyes and laughed at her aunt. It felt nice to be back again. It was rare when she got to visit her family, because of all the travel she does at the BAU. So, she packed up and she was going to stay with Aunt Guinevere for a couple of days. Somehow, she was able to convince Hotch to let her take a couple days off, but he only agreed to it after he heard it was her Cait's birthday. He, of all people, knew how big that was for them. And with everything about Reid and the recurring nightmares she's been having of late, she needed to see her family now more than ever.

"So, is Chris here yet?" She asked her aunt, reaching over the counter to taste the pancake batter she was making. Her aunt slapped her hand away and shook her finger at her niece playfully.

"He is outside with Rebecca and Cassie setting up the decorations for the party."

"Becca is here?"

"Yes, she flew in from Jamaica this week." Her aunt informed her, mixing the batter confidently. Caroline reached over and dropped in some strawberries and her aunt smiled at her. She knew those were her sister's favorite type of pancakes—strawberry.

"But I thought she was doing an exposé in Cuba?"

"She was. . .until Jamaica presented a better story."

"Let me guess, water for the poor?"

Her aunt laughed, shaking her head. "No, actually. It's about providing healthcare in rural areas in Africa."

"Well, nonetheless, I'm glad she's here." She told her aunt, giving her a small smile. "It's been a while since I've seen her."

Rebecca Moorehouse was not only her brother's girlfriend of seven years, but she was also one of her closest friends. Her brother and Rebecca were high school sweethearts, but the only reason they started dating was because Caroline introduced them when they were seventeen. And despite Becca's absence because of her job, the two have been together ever since.

Her brother's girlfriend worked as a travel writer and she was just about the coolest person she knew. Rebecca was one of the only people who had stuck around after the death of their parents and she had been by her family's side ever since. In Caroline's eyes, she was the only girl good enough for her brother.

"Caroline?"

The moment she heard her sister's voice, she turned and saw Caitlin standing in the doorway, holding a leather-bound journal that Caroline had given her for her last birthday in her hands. They stared at each other for a moment and Caroline was struck by how much she had grown.

She remembered her little sister with pigtails and braces, but her sister was no longer a little girl. Her straight-as-a-stick dirty blonde hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, but somehow, her sister managed to pull it off. Instead of big dopey eyes and chubby cheeks, her sister had lost most of her baby chub, which was replaced with high cheekbone and a rounded jawline. Her jade green eyes had lost their doughiness over the years and had become more prominent on her face.

 _Oh, her eyes_. She had their father's eyes—the Hale family eyes. Those deep green eyes that practically glowed when the light hit them were the hallmark of the Hale line. Her siblings had inherited the beautiful jade green eyes that people always envy. Caroline, on the other hand, inherited her mother's eyes—the blue turquoise ringed with gold.

Caitlin had grown into a beautiful young lady, it almost made Caroline want to cry. She had missed her more than she could've possibly imagined. 

"Happy early birthday, little sis." She told her, smiling at her. "Did you miss me?"

Her sister squealed and threw her writing journal on the kitchen floor. She darted forward and tackled Caroline in a hug, wrapping her skinny arms around her waist. The young profile laughed at her excitement and squeezed her tightly, refusing to let go.

"I didn't know if you were actually going to come!" Caitlin exclaimed. "I just can't believe it. You're actually staying here?"

Caroline pulled away from the hug, holding her sister by her shoulders at arms length. She patted her blonde hair carefully, soothingly. "I'm not leaving. I came here to celebrate your birthday, as a family."

"So no work?"

"No work."

Her face lit up with a grin and Caroline felt something stir in her heart like her emotions had become a tangible thing she could touch. Her sister just looked so happy and normal, she couldn't help but feel relief. She was alive, and so was her brother and Cass. They survived hell six years ago, and they came out of it alive.

It took all Caroline had not to recall those weeks of horror.

Caitlin was only ten when the monster who ruined their lives broke into their home and held them captive. She had been young but old enough to remember what happened. They got lucky with Cass. She was just a baby when it all happened so she doesn't remember it, except what they tell her, which wasn't much. They all wanted Cass to have a normal a life as possible without the horror of what happened hanging over her head.

Caitlin had been ten. _Ten years old._

When she was ten, she had a twin brother named Charlie. Charlie had been Cait's world—her best friend.

She had lost the most important person to her in a second it took for a trigger to be pulled. 

And now, she was about to turn sixteen. Caroline vowed after Charlie's death that no matter what happened to them, they would always be a family. Always. 

"Look what we have here," Caroline heard her brother's voice coming from behind her, startling her, "is that my little sister I see, not at work? Please, somebody, pinch me, I must be dreaming."

The blonde 22-year-old turned on her heels and saw her older brother standing in the doorway leading to the backyard.

The word handsome didn't really describe her brother—although that's all they heard when they were growing up. Overwhelming described him more. When he turned sixteen, he had hit a growth spurt that rocked him to the sky, making him well over six feet tall. He was heavily-muscled and toned, and if she wasn't so used to being around him, she would almost be intimidated by his strength. He was deeply tanned from his time in the Middle East, making his green eyes and closely cropped blonde hair pop.

He was exactly as handsome and terrifying as their father used to be—if not more so.

"Oh, shut up, Chris. You work at the Pentagon, for Christ's sake. You have worse hours than I do." She teased her brother.

"See that's where you're wrong, Care." He told her, towering over her against the doorframe, grinning. "I got promoted, so now I work a regular 9 to 5 job."

She rolled her eyes at her brother but she went over and hugged him anyway. She buried her head in his chest since he was almost a foot taller than her, and she listened to his heartbeat for a moment. He smelled strongly of paint and hot glue from hanging the decorations outside. She was almost shocked that he didn't smell like burning metal like he usually does.

Her brother's job at the Pentagon wasn't one to be taken lightly. After serving in the Marine Corps for two years, Chris was promoted to a weapons coordinator and creator at the Pentagon. Whatever deadly weapon the government has to create, he probably had some big part of creating the weapon or making sure it existed. He has the power to potentially create a weapon that could wipe out a whole country, but he takes it in stride.

That was why Chris was her rock and he always would be, just like Dad used to be.

"Don't be a smartass. Just admit you are excited to see me, you asshole."

"I love you too, Care."

Caroline pulled away from her brother the moment Cass burst through the kitchen door from the backyard, running into the kitchen, laughing and squealing.

"Don't spray me, Becky!" Caroline's littlest sister squeaked with joy as she ran around the kitchen like the Tasmanian Devil, her blonde pigtails flopping around as she danced. "I be good, I promise!"

"Cassandra Hale, don't you track mud into this house!" Aunt Guinevere scolded the green-eyed five-year-old as she made a lap around the table, giggling wildly. The runny brown mud left puddles on the tile were her tiny feet padded through the kitchen. "Be careful!"

"Let her have her fun, Aunt G." Caitlin told her, laughing at their little sister. "Let her be a little dork. It's entertaining."

Just then Rebecca walked in from outside, laughing at the five-year-old running around like a crazy person in the kitchen as she wiped off the mud from her hands.

"I swear, that child has too much energy." She remarked, flipping her shoulder-length brown hair over her shoulder casually. "She could go for days."

Then, her brother's girlfriend saw her standing in the kitchen and she let out the closest thing to a girly giggle she had ever heard. Rebecca's cocoa-colored eyes lit up as the woman pulled Caroline in a tight hug.

"I'm so happy you're here." She told her. "I missed you! I don't get to see you enough anymore."

"I missed you too, Bec."

Finally, the crazy five-year-old girl stopped running, giving into exhaustion. Her head bobbed as she looked around at everyone staring at her and she giggled, loving all the attention she was getting.

And then Cass saw Caroline.

" _SISSY_!" She screamed in excitement, her pigtails flying behind her as she sprinted towards her eldest sister's legs at full force.

Before she could knock her over, Caroline caught her and swung her around, laughing along with her giggles. She placed the young girl on her hip and her little sister buried her head into Caroline's fair blonde hair, rubbing her tiny nose into her neck, tickling her.

"How's my favorite little girl in the whole wide world?" She asked Cass fondly, rubbing her back as she wrapped her little arms around her neck delicately in a hug.

"You're home!" She giggled. "I miss you!"

"Oh, I missed you too, baby. So much."

And like that, Caroline was able to forget everything—her job, her past, her present, even the future. Nothing mattered to her more than these moments, the ones with her family. Six years ago, they bonded through something beyond blood. Without her family, she wouldn't be able to make it a single day. They were the thing that kept her going, the only reason she hasn't given up on life. Because she had them, and that was what mattered most.

Just then, her phone rang. Cass, startled by the loud ringing, shot up in her arms, looking at her older sister with large, confused eyes. Everyone stared at her as she fished through her skirt pockets and pulled out her cell. She didn't bother to check the caller ID when she answered.

"Hello?"

"Caroline, I need you to come in. We have a case." Hotch's voice came through the phone. Her heart dropped to her stomach.

She looked around at her family, all of them with expectant faces. She especially paid attention to Caitlin's. If she wasn't here, this was going devastate her.

Caroline carefully set Cass down and migrated towards the back of the house where she was positive no one would hear her.

"Hotch, you said I had these next couple of days off." She argued with him, starting to feel a little angry. "Is there any way you and the team could just go without me this one time?"

"I wish there was." He admitted, sounding sincere. She rubbed her head as she thought. "It's important."

Caroline sighed, defeated. "Caitlin is going to hate me."

"She is not going to hate you."

"Yes, she is. It's her sixteenth birthday, Hotch! I have never missed a birthday or an anniversary in six years because we almost didn't have those. This is going to kill her."

Then, she heard a gasp come from behind her and she whipped around, her blonde hair flying behind her. She saw Caitlin standing in the doorway with tears in her eyes.

"You're leaving?" She whispered. Her face was contorted and twisted, almost to where she looked like she was in pain. No, more like betrayal.

Caroline felt an immediate pang of guilt. She tried to backtrack. "No, Cait, wait! It's not like that—"

"It's never like that!" Her sister snapped at her, wiping the tears from under her eyes aggressively. "I understand your job is important, okay? But after everything we've been through, I just thought we could have a normal day without serial killers and psychopaths. For once, why can't we be normal?"

"I know, Caitlin, I'm sorry."

"No." She muttered, her eyes trained on the floor. "I'm tired of people apologizing. That's all I ever heard when Mom and Dad died, and even more so when Charlie died. I'm so sick of people saying they're sorry."

Caroline stared at her sister, unable to think of what to say. For once in her life, Caroline was beyond speechless. She couldn't think of one thing to say to her sister that would make this, everything, okay. Her uselessness caused a sharp, intense pain in her chest that she couldn't shake.

"Caitlin—"

"Don't, Caroline, just don't." She murmured, avoiding her sister's eyes. "Go ahead and leave. That's what you're good at anyway."

Caitlin turned on her heels and ran away, and she distinctly saw the tears running down her sister's face. Caroline rested her head against the wall, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to come. Everything started to come back in a second; the raw, overwhelming fear and pain she's stifled down for years started bubbling up, suffocating her. She was gasping for air, unable to breathe. The world blurred in front of her and she stumbled, almost falling to her knees. She rested her hand on the wall to balance herself.

She was having a panic attack.

Caroling tried to calm herself down and slow her breathing, but it wasn't working. She needed to stop. All the pain, all the fear...it was too much. It overwhelmed her, drowning her. She wasn't strong enough to face everything she's shoved so far down inside herself she doesn't recognize it. She just wanted everything to stop.

 _Then make it stop_ , she told herself. _No one is going to save you but yourself_.

So, she took a deep breath and held it, trying to concentrate. She closed her eyes tightly, so tightly she was seeing pale purple spots dance across her eyes.

Caroline was doing what she did best—she was turning off her emotions.

When _He_ had her family, everything was starting to boil over. Everything was too much to handle for her, and she was weak. She was always too scared or pathetic to even attempt to fight back. She needed to be strong for Cass and Caitlin and Chris if they wanted to make it out alive. So, when he would come into her room at night, she'd shut off her emotions. And when he'd started, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of getting a reaction out of her. That's when she discovered her unique ability to feel absolutely nothing when she wanted to, and she did it often.

That's when she felt it—the emptiness. She embraced it and she took relief in feeling absolutely nothing. Her face went slack and she straightened her back, her face becoming a cool exterior.

She suddenly remembered she was still on the phone with Hotch. She put the phone up to her ear, where he had just been silent the whole time.

"I'll be at Quantico in twenty."

She didn't wait for a response. She hung up the phone and didn't check it again.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline walked through the BAU headquarters aimlessly, trying to get her head together. The numbness had eventually subsided after she left her aunt's house, but that nagging worry was still there. Besides Caitlin, nobody was angry with her sudden departure. Her aunt even told her that Caitlin would shake out of it by the time she came back home, but she highly doubted that.

She had to find some way to make this up to her sister. Anything.

As she passed Gideon's office, she heard voices coming out through the cracked door. She stopped and listened in, curiously.

"So anyone else would've seen a guy who stutters, but you saw the Footpath Killer." A male voice stated, astounded.

She knew what they were talking about -- the Footpath Killer. It was a case Gideon was working on during his time at the university. Caroline even saw the original profile, the one the older profiler originally gave to the police. Given that he struck people from behind, even on a deserted footpath in the woods, he had to be ashamed of something. Gideon said it was a stutter, one of the hardest things to determine when giving a profile.

After the Seattle Strangler case, Caroline received a call from Reid that Gideon was at a decrepit gas station and had just caught the Footpath killer. Apparently, when they returned home, Gideon stumbled upon the gas station while out for a drive and found that the man running the store fit the profile -- stutter and all. But, before he could call the police, the Footpath Killer took him hostage and threatened him at gunpoint but walked out totally unharmed. They later arrested the man for all thirteen murders of the Footpath Killer.

He had yet to explain how he did it.

"Right," Gideon replied. "But sometimes these guys are still found by just dumb luck. Berkowitz was caught because of a parking ticket."

"Except the cop who caught him wasn't staring down a shotgun like you were," Caroline told Gideon, speaking up from the doorway.

"This is true." He nodded at her. He glanced over at the two male trainees sitting in front of him. "This is also a good time to stop."

"Thank you, sir." One of the male FBI trainees said as they stood up to leave.

"No, thank you."

As the trainees left, Caroline entered the room and sat down in the office chair directly in front of Gideon. She smoothed out her grey slacks as she sat down, trying to remove the wrinkles. After she left her aunt's house, she changed into something a little more appropriate for work, which just so happened to be some leftover grey slacks, a silk maroon blouse, and a grey tailored jacket with some black flats she had in her go-bag stashed in her car. She didn't have time to head home and pick out clothes that were less wrinkled.

"Ok, I'm curious," Caroline said, leaning back in the chair. "Why'd he stutter?"

"You're on your way to becoming one of the best agents in the Bureau now, Caroline," Gideon replied, smiling at her like he knew a secret. "You tell me."

"Is that a challenge?"

"Depends on whether or not you can figure it out, I suppose."

She narrowed her eyes and gave him a smug smile. "Okay. Challenge accepted."

Gideon nodded, acknowledging her determination. They both stood and Caroline followed him out of his office and into the bullpen where Reid was sitting at his desk, concentrating intently on a chessboard, and both Derek and Elle were watching him with confused looks.

Gideon approached Reid and he moved his knight a few spaces to the left. "Check. Checkmate in three moves."

"What. . .?" Reid muttered to himself, staring at the chessboard in confusion.

"You know you'll start beating him when you learn," Caroline told him, coming up behind him. She glanced over his shoulder and examined the chessboard. "He's definitely got you in three."

"Learning what?"

She smiled at him, patting him on the shoulders playfully. "To think outside of the box."

"You would know how to do that, wouldn't you, Care?" Derek commented, leaning back in his office chair. "You're our Little Miss Risk-Taker, aren't you?"

She rolled her eyes and leaned against Reid's desk, facing Derek and Elle. "Only when duty calls. But I have a question."

"Go for it," Elle said.

"The Footpath Killer, why did he stutter?" She asked them.

Morgan snorted. "Come on, Care, we've all asked Gideon and he won't say."

"He wants us to figure it out," Elle told her, crossing her arm over her chest. "Which is really a pain in the ass if you're the new guy and he keeps testing you at every turn."

Caroline gave Elle a sympathetic smile. After the Seattle Strangler case, Hotch approved Elle's transfer to the BAU. She was officially a member, but Gideon still keeps testing her every moment he gets.

"Doesn't matter." She said confidently. "I'm up for a challenge."

"Okay, hotshot," Elle told her, smiling smugly at her. "It's on. Luckily for you, I like a challenge."

"Good," a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and big blues eyes told Elle as she approached the small group of profilers, "because these are for you."

The small woman in the green sweater plopped a slack of government-issued files on her desk. Elle looked at the files in distaste, then the blonde woman with curiosity. Caroline bit back her laughter as she sat at her desk across from Reid's.

"I'm Special Agent Jennifer Jareau, JJ if you like." The blonde woman stuck out her to Elle and she took it, shaking their hands briefly before pulling away.

"Elle."

"Greenaway—highest number of solved cases in Seattle three years running, specialty in sex offender cases."

Elle looked over at Caroline with an impressed look and she just smiled at her. JJ was the lifeline at the BAU, she knew everything about everyone. It was her job.

"Not bad." She told JJ.

"Well, I'm the unit liaison." She explained to Elle as she walked towards Hotch's office in the back of the bullpen. "My specialty is untangling bureaucratic knots. You'll probably be talking to me a lot. My door's always open, mainly because I'm never in my office. So just call me on my cell, okay? We'll talk."

Hotch walked out of his office right as JJ approached. They had a brief discussion before he turned to everyone huddled in the bullpen.

"BAU Team, can you meet me in the conference room, please?" Hotch announced. "I need to show you something."

Everyone got up and followed their boss into the conference room directly from across his office. It was quiet as they settled into their regular seating arrangements. Caroline sat in the seat facing the window that looked out into the bullpen to where she could see all the FBI agents and trainees running around, trying to get all of their work done for the day. She also had a clear view of the door, so she can watch who comes in and out of the FBI field office. She liked it that way, the way where she knew what was going on at all times around her.

She sat directly across from Hotch, with Reid on her right and Derek on her left. Elle was beside Derek and Gideon sat between Reid and JJ, who was squashed in between the two.

After everyone settled, Hotch began presenting the case.

"This is from the Phoenix office, the Bradshaw College in Tempe has experienced six fires in seven months."

"Who recorded it?" Gideon asked, pushing his glasses on top of his head.

Caroline flipped through the files laid out in front of her as everyone talked, trying to get ahead.

"A student with a digital camcorder," JJ told him. "He was watching a fire in the building across the front of their dorm. The other person you'll see is his roommate, 20-year-old Matthew Rowland."

She directed their attention to the flat-screen TV hanging on the wall perpendicular to Caroline. JJ pulled out a small white remote and pressed a button, making the screen light up.

At first, this picture was grainy, but it focused in after a couple of seconds. The camera was trained on a window two-stories above the vantage point, where smoke was billowing out of the room and the huge yellow and red fire coming from the room burned out everything else.

" _This is crazy_!" The student from the tape hollered as the cameraman zoomed in on the fire. " _Hey, Matt, get over here. You gotta see this, man. The building's on fire_!"

A young man with impish features and shaved back black hair stuck his face into the frame, his face colored with excitement. He smiled at the camera, exposing large, white teeth. " _I can't believe this. This is so cool_!"

"Is that him?" Gideon asked.

"Yeah, that's him," Hotch replied.

They continued to watch the tape and things quickly went from bad to worse.

" _Whoa, dude, over here_." The student on the tape called to him, pointing over to under their door. Strangely, there was an unknown pool of liquid forming under the door coming from the outside, like someone was pouring something inside the room. " _Check this out_."

"What is it?" Matthew Rowland asked his roommate as he leaned over to investigate the mysterious substance.

The cameraman sighed. " _I don't know, but it's coming underneath the door. Is someone in the hallway_?"

Suddenly, the sound of the lock turning against the door got both of the boys' attention. Caroline bit her lip as she watched.

" _Hey, someone's trying to get in_!" The cameraman exclaimed, then his concern shifted to his friend. "Hey, dude, you should get away from there."

 _"Oh, my god, it smells like gas_!" Matthew told his friend, his nose scrunching.

Before either student could react, large white and yellow flames raced up Matthew's body, covering the student.

" _Oh, God! God_!" He screamed in agony as the flames raced up his body. Caroline tried to ignore out his cries of pain, but he was too loud. She flinched at each cry, but she didn't take her eyes off the screen.

The student stumbled and fell on the floor, screaming even louder as the fire began to melt his body. The cameraman dropped the camcorder on the floor, racing to his friend, trying to put him out with a used rug.

And that was where the video ended, the young man desperately trying to save his friend. They didn't need to see the rest to know what happened.

Everyone focused on Hotch, trying to comprehend what they just saw. Caroline just saw a man being burned alive. And yet, as horrible and terrifying as that was, she wasn't as disgusted or horrified as she thought she would be—should be when presented such gruesome images.

And that scared her. A lot.

"Wheels up in 30," Hotch told them team, his face a mask of cool seriousness. "I don't think I need to tell you that time is of the essence here."

Caroline sighed and rested her head in the palm of her hands. Serial arsonists only had two things of consistency. One was they will set fire anytime or anywhere under their right set of circumstances. The second part was the worst one of all.

They don't stop until they're caught.


	5. Burn

**"** _The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone._ **"**

**— _Harriet Beecher Stowe  
_**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**THE LOUD TRILL OF** Caroline's phone text alert rang on the plane. Reid, who was sitting directly in front of her with a chess match in between them, glanced up at her, startled by the noise. All the other profilers were too busy looking into other things to notice.

She grabbed her phone sitting in the chair beside her and checked her messages. Sure enough, she had a text from Rebecca. She bit her lip as she anxiously opened the message.

The text read: **Cait is fine. Chris checked on her, she's just blowing off steam. Don't worry, focus on the case.**

Caroline sucked in a shallow breath and mashed her teeth together even harder on her bottom lip. She was dangerously close to drawing blood, but she didn't care. Caitlin wasn't fine. She was angry and she was upset and Caroline was here, on a plane almost thirty-thousand feet in the air, instead of with her little sister.

Her fingers tapped across the letters on her phone, typing out the message before sending it.

She sent back: **She's not just blowing off steam, she's pissed and she has every right to be. Make sure you, Chris, or Aunt G stays with her tonight. She shouldn't be alone right now. Thanks, Bec.**

With that, Caroline shut off her phone and shoved it in her black leather bag leaning against her chair, refusing to look at the phone for the rest of the plane ride. As much as she wanted to know what was going on, she did have a job to do, and she couldn't be distracted. She needed to compartmentalize.

"Everything alright?" Reid asked her, not glancing up from the chessboard game as he shuffled a white knight piece across the board. "You look worried."

"I'm fine," she lied to him, giving him a convincing smile, "just family stuff, you know?"

"Care, you may be able to fool the rest of the team, but I know you better than that." He told her, his chocolate brown eyes meeting hers. They were warm and kind and earnest as they stared at her. "Now, what's wrong?"

She sighed. She couldn't resist those brown eyes. "It's my sister's sixteenth birthday in two days. I was supposed to say with my family these next couple of days to celebrate, but duty calls."

He frowned slightly as he thought. "Maybe we'll get back in time for her birthday."

"I highly doubt it. Besides, I don't think she'd want me there after this morning."

"And what happened?"

"We got into an argument."

"Over what?"

Caroline hesitated, trying to gauge what to say next.

Nobody knew her past except Hotch and Gideon, and that was only because they were on the case. If it was up to her, she wouldn't let anyone know what happened to her. She refused to tell anyone on the team what happened to her six years ago, even after Gideon suggested it would be a good step in her therapy. Therapy. She didn't need therapy. What she needed was the son of a bitch who ruined her life to rot in hell, but that was never going to happen, so she's stuck in limbo. She was here, but not completely.

To tell anyone on the team what happened to her, it would destroy everything she worked so hard for over the last year. People would see her differently, treat her weirdly and worst of all, think of her as weak. She may have been weak six years ago, but she sure as hell wasn't now. She refused to have that be taken away from her.

"She thinks I spend too much time at my job." Caroline lied smoothly. This time, if Reid noticed anything, he didn't say. "Which is true. I'm almost as much as a workaholic as Hotch is."

"You know, statistically, if you factor in sleeping and eating times, you're technically doing other things more often than working. 60% of your day is either eating, drinking, sleeping—"

She rolled her eyes, exasperated, puffing a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes. "Thanks for the talk, Reid. Real helpful."

He opened his mouth partially to say something else, but before he could speak, Hotch spoke up from across the plane.

"Okay, guys, I want us to refresh on arsonists before we land. So what do we know?"

"There are two common stressors for serial arsonists," Reid stated, still looking at Caroline. He broke away his gaze to look over at Hotch.

"Loss of love and loss of a job," Elle said while filing down her nails.

"When was the fire first set?" Derek asked everyone as he pulled up his computer. On the illuminated screen, he had created a chart of the days in the nine months when the fires had been set. Nine columns, one for each month, and seven rows, one for each day of the week.

"March. The next one was in May, and the third wasn't until September, then two weeks later there were three in one night." Hotch told him, reading off of the file in his hands.

Derek highlighted the dates in red as everyone continued to brainstorm.

"He's speeding up." Caroline noticed, looking at Derek's chart. The red was shortening in length of space. "The fires are closer together."

"Hey, Reid, you got any statistics on arsonists?" Derek Morgan called over his shoulder as he typed.

"82% are white males between 17 and 27." He stated as if he were reading it straight from a book. That was the perks of an eidetic memory. He knew everything. "Female arsonists are far less likely, their motive typically being revenge."

"Sounds like our boy's a student," Derek commented.

Gideon finally glanced up from reading a file in the corner of the jet. He squinted his eyes at him through his square-lens glasses. "Don't be so sure. You rely too much on precedent, you never allow for the unexpected."

Gideon looked over at Reid and Caroline. "If he's gone from setting one fire to three in two weeks—"

"Rapid escalation." She told him. "He's gone from the power to damage a building to something more satisfying. The power over life and death."

"Exactly."

"Okay," Elle said, looking around the plane at everyone, "so who are we talking to first?"

Hotch held up the file and pointed to the picture of a pretty middle-aged black woman with short brown hair clipped to the file. "Dean of students, Ellen Turner."

Caroline rested back in her chair and she and Reid exchanged a quick look. She immediately recognized the urgency hidden in his eyes, a look she knew all too well. With the unsub's escalation, they had no idea when he would strike next, and that could make anyone a target.

There was going to be another fire, and the unsub's goal is to kill.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline slid on her sunglasses as the black SUVs pulled up in front of Bradshaw College's administration building. It was a bright 96 degrees outside and the sun was in full force. College kids bustled around them, oblivious to the black sedans parked in front of the entrance. It was better that way. She hoped they stayed oblivious, rather than panicked. It made everyone's job harder if people were panicking.

The moment the SUVs stopped, the BAU team piled out. Hotch, Elle, and Derek in the first car with Gideon, Reid, and Caroline in the second. Before she could step out of the van, Reid, who had been sitting in the front seat, extended her a hand. She gave him a sheepish smile as she took his hand and he helped her out of the van, her heels clicking as they stepped onto the sidewalk.

The moment she stepped outside, she looked around at the college campus. The administration building was in the center of the campus, the focal point. Reid had given her the rundown of Bradshaw College on the car ride. Established in the late 1800s, Bradshaw is known for its old-style architecture. Buildings were equipped with large white columns and polished marble steps instead of stone or brick-like most colleges. M.I.T was much larger and grander, but she noticed the college was still notable, ranking fairly high nationally. Normal kids go here trying to live normal lives.

If only a serial arsonist wasn't setting fires, then maybe these kids could.

"No badges," Gideon told the team as everyone else piled out of the vans and started walking towards the front door. "I don't want to satisfy the unsub's need for attention by letting him know he got the FBI here. Try not to look official."

He glanced behind his shoulder at the team, all of whom were dressed professionally. Derek and Hotch were wearing freshly-pressed suits and Reid was in a checkered shirt with a dark red tie. Both Elle and Caroline were wearing mute colored blazers with slacks, but Caroline was the only one who dared to wear heels on the job.

He sighed in resignation. "Try to look less official."

Reid scrunched his nose in confusion and glanced around him at everyone. Caroline met his gaze and shrugged, as Hotch straightened his tie, and Derek and Elle just rolled their eyes.

The blonde girl slid her sunglasses further down her nose and peeked over the rims at the dark-skinned woman marching determinedly towards the group of FBI profilers. She recognized her from the photo shown on the plane—the dean of students, Ellen Turner. Although, walking off her left shoulder was someone she didn't recognize. He was a tall, skinny Asian man who looked beyond intimidated at the presence of the dean. But, in his defense, Caroline would've been intimidated too by the look of sheer determination on the dean's face.

"Hello, I'm Ellen Turner, dean of students here at Bradshaw College." The pretty African woman introduced herself, shaking everyone's hands curtly. "Obviously, I'd rather be meeting you under different circumstances" She looked over beside her at the Asian man. "This is Fire Inspector Zhang."

"This morning the Chemistry department reported several bottles of highly flammable chemicals missing." He reported to the FBI agents. Caroline pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, fully focused on the conversation.

It seems the unsub wasn't done quite yet.

"I'm prepared to evacuate this campus." Dean Turner said. "I cannot and will not have this threat hanging over this school."

"We understand that, ma'am, but that brings with it its own problems," Hotch explained to her. "You might evacuate the arsonist as well."

"Then the case goes unsolved; the campus is reopened, but the fires start up again." Caroline agreed, assuring the dean. "Keeping the school open right now is the best option."

"Wait, hold on," Derek interrupted abruptly. He looked over at the Fire Inspector. "You said the chemicals were missing today."

Inspector Zhang nodded while Derek continued. "One of the previous fires was set with diesel fuel that disappeared from the groundskeeping facility. How long after it disappeared was the fire set?"

Dean Turner and Inspector Zhang glanced at each other before she replied.

"One day."

The FBI profilers all shared a concerned look, starting to think the same thing.

"If he's holding to a pattern. . ." Elle trailed off, biting her lip anxiously.

Caroline sighed and looked up at the looming building in front of her. She stared at it as if she was waiting for something to happen.

"Who's to say the next fire won't be today?"

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Reid carefully lifted the yellow caution tape up as he ducked under it and entered the crime scene, trying to avoid stepping on the charred objects left in the burned room. He held the tape up as Caroline gracefully followed him and slipped under it. She straightened her back as she looked around Matthew Rowland's room.

There was an unmissable huge black scorch mark on the wooden floor where the victim had been burned alive. Around it, the fire had spread from a nearby rug onto the left wall, leaving pictures unrecognizable and anything else unsalvageable. Other than the parts of the room that had been reduced to black, charred nothingness, the room was relatively normal. Two unkempt beds, clothes lying everywhere, no organization system -- this was obvious in the dorm of two college boys.

Caroline's mind started to work, trying to piece together the situation. Reid, who was silent as he walked around the room looking for evidence, watched as her clear blue eyes trained themselves on the edge of the door frame. She had particularly focused on the lock.

"The door was locked." She stated, leaning over to examine the door frame. She took two fingers and carefully ran them along the edge. Besides getting gray ash and charcoal on her white gloves, she didn't feel any rough edges or abrasions. The unsub didn't apply much force to the door, it seemed virtually unharmed, minus the scorch marks.

"Matthew Rowland and his roommate watched as the doorknob turned against the lock," Reid said, watching her examine the doorframe.

"But the unsub couldn't get in."

"So he pours the accelerant into the room from the hallway."

Caroline frowned and placed her hands on her knees, pushing herself to stand up. "Which means he couldn't see the fire."

"But he could hear Matthew Rowland screaming." Reid countered.

She shook her head, still frowning. "Yeah, but not for long. He would have left quickly to avoid being spotted. It doesn't make sense."

Caroline walked over to Reid and stood beside him as she glanced around the room. She was vaguely aware she could smell the coffee from his breath and dull aroma of cologne coming off of him. She was close enough to him that, if she wanted to, she could reach out and touch his face towering above her. And she wanted to, but her hands stayed stiff at her sides.

"Pyromania as a mental disorder may just be a simple myth, but what we know from precedent that serial arsonists derive pleasure from pathological fire-setting." He explained to her.

"Sex and power." Caroline murmured to herself as she thought.

"But a serial arsonist wouldn't just set a fire and walk away."

"He needs to experience it."

Reid crossed his arms and glanced down at her, his brown eyes meeting her blue. She could see the gears in his mind working as he thought.

"So why would he set a fire he couldn't watch?"

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

After checking out Matthew Rowland's room, Reid and Caroline headed to the make-shift command center the university provided for them. It was formally a computer lab, but now, it was their base of commands. It was equipped with over ten computers, all in working order, a whiteboard, and two steel tables with chairs. It wasn't much, but it would do.

Caroline read through the case file quickly as she examined the devices on the table. Hotch told her and Reid to figure out the devices the unsub used to cause the first three fires, but so far, she wasn't seeing anything that caught her eyes. The design was basic, so basic a startling level engineer or science major could make, and there wasn't anything pointing towards a signature.

"So, the timer set the road flare, which then lights the chemical mixture inside the canister." She said to Reid, picking up the small, rectangular device in front of her. She turned it around in her hands, trying to find any distinctive markers. "Simple."

"Yet sophisticated in its simplicity." He told her, reaching for the device. "I mean, there's a meticulous construction to it."

Reid's hand brushed against hers as she handed him the device. It was just a linger, the brush of fingertips, but it was enough to cause her heart to race. She quickly tried to take her mind off of her pounding heart.

"Chemical accelerant could mean chemistry student." She suggested as she stood up with her coffee cup that Caitlin had gotten her for Christmas the year before. It was when she had gone through her pottery phase, so she made it herself. It was one of her shorter-lasting hobbies, given her sister couldn't make anything to save her life. The coffee cup handle was lopsided and uneven and the front drooped down a little, like a little dent in a teapot. But she kept it anyway because, despite how hideous it looked, Caitlin gave it to her so it had all the value in the world.

"Could also mean chemistry professor," Reid added, tapping his fingers against the table as he examined the device.

Caroline clicked her tongue and shook her head, her blonde curls falling over her shoulder. "Mmm, I say student. You need self-confidence to lecture in front of a classroom of thirty college kids."

"Arsonists are socially incompetent." She continued as she filled up her coffee cup with a batch sitting near the windowsill. "This guy, he doesn't go on dates. He doesn't go to parties. He doesn't feel comfortable in front of groups."

She took a sip of her coffee and peeked up to see Reid staring at her with a mixed look of offended and confused on his face. That was around the time she realized that she just described Spencer in any social setting she'd ever seen him in and Caroline had to hold back a giggle. She swallowed her sip of coffee and coughed a couple of times, trying to play off her laugh.

"And, of course, he's a total psychopath." She assured him, trying to wipe the smile off her face.

He gave her a curt, awkward laugh, and a quick twitch of a smile. She could tell he was uncomfortable. "Of course."

Suddenly, the sound of the fire alarm rang throughout the building, causing both Caroline and Reid to jump. The two didn't even have time to speak before pandemonium insured. People inside and outside the command center started panicking, sprinting for the nearest exit. Screams erupted from the halls.

"What the hell is going on?" She yelled over the loud drill of the alarm, holding her hands over her ears, trying to block out the noise. She wasn't successful.

"I don't know!" Reid yelled back. She felt his hand brush against hers and then the cool grip of his long fingers wrapping around her wrist. He pulled her towards him, almost instinctively, and held her there in his arms, keeping her out of the way of the panicked employees. "Whatever is going on, we need to get out of here. Now!"

Despite all the chaos and panic, she felt at peace. It was like the world tuned out around her. She couldn't hear the panicked screams and sound of feet sprinting down the halls. All she could focus on was Spencer Reid and the sound of his breathing against her ear.

"Caroline?" His voice pulled her back out of her daze. "Did you hear me? We have to go!"

She snapped out of it and immediately launched into that calm state she uses just for emergencies only.

"We need to find Gideon!" She told him, almost shouting in his ear. "I think he went to the west wing."

Reid nodded in agreement and the two FBI profilers pushed their way through the crowd to the closest exit, which was down the hall.

Her eyes were blinded by the bright sun the moment she stepped outside the door. She squinted and shielded her eyes. That's when she saw it.

Directly across from them, the west wing had billowing smoke coming out of the third story window.

Caroline took off towards the building, sprinting as fast without a second thought. She could hear Reid behind her, but he could never catch up with her, despite the fact she was in heels. She used to be in track and field in high school, even won titles for her long-distance sprints. This was nothing.

"Move, move, out of the way!" She yelled at the crowd forming around the building. She could hear the sirens of the firetrucks and ambulances off in the distance but she didn't stop.

Please don't let someone be in there, she repeated to herself, almost like a prayer as she looked at the billowing smoke in the sky, Please don't let there be somebody in there.

When Caroline reached the building, she stopped dead in her tracks, with Reid panting behind her. A huge crowd had already formed around the building, everyone staring up at it with mixed looks of horror and fear. She was in the middle of the crowd and she looked up at the building, the fire racing out of the windows. It was so hot, she could feel the heat coming from the flames along with the distinct smell of burnt gasoline. They were too late, there was no way somebody could survive that.

Behind her, Hotch ran up and stopped beside her, looking at the building the same way Reid and she were. _Horrified._

He was silent for a moment, processing what was happening. He glanced around him at the crowd before turning to Caroline with a stark face.

"The unsub might be here watching. Take pictures—as many as you can." He ordered. "I want photos of all the guys in the crowd."

"Got it." She told him, glancing back at Spencer. "Reid, can you grab the camera?"

He nodded and rummaged through his large leather satchel hanging on his shoulders. He pulled out a small digital camera and handed it to her as Hotch went to search for Gideon, Elle, and Derek.

She booted up the camera and the moment it turned on, instead of focusing it on the building, she turned to the crowd instead. She began snapping pictures of every male in the crowd, all of them staring up at the building, unaware of what she was doing.

"Do you really think he's here?" Reid asked her quietly as the firetrucks approached. The sounds of sirens rang in the air.

She stopped taking photos for a moment and glanced up at him, her blue eyes meeting his brown ones. She stared into them, unsure what to tell him.

He knew the statistics. Arsonists are vain; they need to see their handiwork and the chaos they cause in order to get off. It was almost guaranteed the unsub was here somewhere. Yet, he asked anyway. Because, deep down in his fact-filled, apathetic science-controlled mind, even he felt the absolute horror of the situation.

How bad has the human race gotten that people can enjoy watching others burn around them?

"I don't know, Reid." She murmured, more to herself than him as she glanced up at the burning building. "I don't know. But I really hope he isn't."


	6. Accelerant

**"** _What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal._ **"**

**— _Albert Pine_  
**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**THE VICTIM HAD BEEN** a professor. Caroline had overheard Gideon and Hotch talking in the halls after the fire had been put out. Professor Wallace. He was a favorite at the university, a legend. He changed lives, got through to people. He cared.

Or, well, he did.

Now, all that was left of a brilliant man was a charred corpse and a decimated office.

"We've been at this all night, and we've got nothing," Morgan complained as he paced around the command center. After the fire, Caroline printed out all the pictures she had taken of the crowd and laid them out on the table, and just stared at them. "Look at these expressions." He gestured to the photos. "We got fear, a touch of horror, even a little bit of panic. Where's this guy getting off?"

The BAU team all watched as he paced back and forth around the room. Mostly everyone was sitting around the table, except for Derek, and Reid, who was leaning against the wall. Hotch sat across from her with his head in his hands, trying to think. Elle and Gideon simply watched Derek pace back and forth, back and forth. Caroline was too focused on the photos to bother watching.

He was right. She saw all the behavioral tells—fear, horror, panic. But she wasn't seeing any pleasure or enjoyment from any bystander. Which meant either the unsub was a very good liar or he wasn't there, which also meant he didn't watch the fire and therefore, the profile was wrong.

"When asked about his motives, Peter Dinsdale said, ' _I am devoted to fire. Fire is my master_.'" Reid stated in a matter-of-factly tone.

Derek sighed. "Okay, so who was our boy's master?" He pulled out a lighter from his pocket and flicked it to life, examining the small orange and yellow flame. "10,000 plus students and one has a serious fascination with fire." He shut off the lighter and shoved it back into his pocket.

"Fire starting is one-third of the homicidal triad—an early predictor of adult dissociative criminal behavior," Elle remarked. "If we looked into his childhood, we'd probably find all three. Bedwetting and cruelty to animals."

Gideon stood up slowly, rubbing his hands together as he thought. "Absent or a divine father, trouble with the opposite sex, chronic low self-esteem—the M.O. would be dynamic." He began to walk around the room as he spoke. "Evolving. As the fire setting escalates, they thrive on panic, fear. It's just the standard profile of a serial arsonist."

Reid looked up at Gideon. "Based on hundreds of interviews."

"On precedent." Derek chimed in.

"Everything the unsub should be, according to research." Caroline sighed, rubbing her eyes. She ran her fingers through her hair quickly, almost aggressively. Her blonde hair clung to her fingers as she raked it through. "We're off the mark."

Gideon nodded at her, completely in agreement. "Because of two missing elements."

Derek Morgan eased himself in a chair and leaned back against it, placing his hands on his knees. "Sex and power—the two motives that drive a serial arsonist."

Caroline didn't need to hear what Gideon said next to know what was happening. It was quite obvious that everything that they had profiled was off. Not wrong, but it didn't fit. They were missing something.

Gideon looked at the team with a somber expression.

"And without them, we do not have a profile."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

The sound of Caroline's heels clicking on the marble steps was the only noise in the dark night. There was no one on the campus, not now. After the fire that had happened earlier in the day, people were terrified. Kids were being picked up by the dozens. The whole campus was in a state of panic.

She didn't blame them, she would be too if she was them.

The sound of crickets chirping relaxed her as she walked through the campus. She had gotten a call from Hotch saying a couple of chemistry students claim to know how the unsub set the fires. Usually, they would filter claims like those, but given chemistry could be the background for the arsonist, Hotch wanted to make sure the unsub wasn't trying to throw them off his tracks or if these kids had any clue who could've done this.

So, he told her she had five minutes to meet him and Reid at the chemistry building. She was booking it for all she was worth. When Hotch says jump, they ask how high.

As Caroline strolled down the marble walkway, she heard a disembodied voice call out, "Whoa! Hey!", behind her. She whipped around, her blonde hair swirling around her as the cool night wind blew through.

Behind her, sitting on a silver bike, was a boy, no older than 20, dressed in freshly pressed yellow button-up shirt and brown khakis. The first thing she noticed about him was that his nose was too big for his face and his hair was shaggy enough to peek out from under his black helmet. He stared at her for a moment, like he was surprised he actually got her attention.

"Um, sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." He finally said after an awkward silence. He clambered off his bike and rested it against his hip. "I'm just, um, I'm campus patrol. I'm supposed to ask for you I.D."

She waited for a second to see if he was kidding. The patrol officer looked at her expectantly. She snickered a little when she realized he was serious. "Sure, sure."

She shook her head in disbelief as she reached into her pockets and pulled out her FBI badge. Most of the time, given Caroline's petite body, curly blonde hair and big blue eyes, people always assumed she wasn't a threat. The fact anyone thinks she could be a killer was downright hilarious—until she started working at the BAU. That's when she learned psychopaths and serial killers don't care what they look like, they come in all shapes and sizes. Now, she knew better. Caroline may look innocent and harmless, but she could easily disarm an unsub with a gun with one hand and not break a sweat.

She presented her FBI badge to the officer, a small smile still on her lips. He leaned over his bike slightly to get a better look at it. In the dark, she couldn't see as well, but she suddenly noticed his right hand was fiddling with a necklace hanging around his neck. It wasn't anything fancy, just a piece of leather with a silver pendant with Chinese symbols on it. She stared at it for a split second longer before the boy pulled away.

"You're one of those FBI guys." He said, looking both shocked and excited. He gave her back her badge and she slipped it back in her pocket. "Like, uh, a profiler, right? Like one look at a crime scene, you can tell what kind of shampoo a killer uses?"

"You sound skeptical."

He laughed, ringing his necklace, pulling it against his neck like he was uncomfortable. "Uh, maybe a little."

She nodded towards the necklace. "Your girlfriend thinks you're gonna break up with her."

The guy's face slowly morphed from a smile to a state of confusion. He dropped the smile. "You're kidding, right?"

"Well, you keep adjusting your necklace. That tells me you're not used to wearing one or somebody else probably bought it for you, most likely recently." She explained to him, glancing at the necklace. "And the Chinese symbol on it means ' _Forever Yours_ '."

He stared at her, speechless. She smiled, shaking her head at the confounded look on the officer's face.

"Take care of yourself, all right?" Caroline grinned as she turned around and walked the steps. She eventually heard the boy get back on his bike and ride off, but her smile didn't go away.

Sometimes, she really, really liked her job. What little fun she did get was so worth it. Messing with that patrol officer was the highlight of her week.

Thankfully for her, the chemistry building wasn't far from the administration building, so she wasn't late walking into the chemistry lab on the first floor.

The first thing that hit her as she walked into the lab room was the strong chemical smell. She could tell there had recently been a reaction of some sort because the odor was pungent, hanging in the air like a tangible thing. The smell stung her eyes a little, almost causing them to water. She could even taste the odor, and it wasn't any better than the smell.

After her nose adjusted to the smell, she looked around the room. There were five black-top lab tables in the room, all in vertical rows. Glass cabinet filled with chemicals and equipment lined the walls. The faded white tile and stucco wallpaper were stained from constant spills and accidents. In the back of the room, four students, three girls and one boy, were working on a centrifuge that was whirling and buzzing.

Hotch and Reid were already in the lab with Inspector Zhang, huddled in a group, all speaking in hushed tones away from the students. The moment she walked in, Hotch looked up and motioned her over. She obliged and stood between him and Reid.

"Reid, since you're more their age, why don't you do the talking?" Hotch asked him. Spencer shot Caroline a panicked glance and she gave him an assuring pat on the back.

"You'll be fine. They're just college kids." She encouraged him. "You can do this."

For the better part of the past year, Caroline and the team—but mostly her—attempted to teach Reid how to interrogate without having a nervous breakdown. It wasn't that he was socially awkward exactly, but given he's a proven genius and graduated high school when he was 12, he never really learned how to interact properly in social groups, especially since the teens are when most people learn social cues and appropriate terms. He did great with her one-on-one and with the BAU team as a whole, but outside of that, she's barely seen him interact with a human being. That wasn't his fault, she blamed it on the bullies in high school, but it has taken a lot of work to get him where he was now. This would be a big leap for him, and he was definitely improving. She just didn't know if his improvement made him ready or not.

Reid cleared his throat as Caroline and Hotch moved to the far wall, leaving him to his own devices.

"Hi—hi, guys. Uh, my name's, uh, Dr. Spencer Reid. I'm an, um, agent with the BAU. The Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI." The four college kids glanced up from their work, their eyes uninterested and their faces blank and bored. She could tell he was getting nervous by the way he was ringing an unused light bulb insistently in front of himself but, much to her surprised, he kept going.

"Which, actually, it used to be called the, um, BSU, the Behavioral Science Unit, but not anymore." He began to ramble and Caroline bit her lip. _Wrap it up, Spence_ , she thought it herself. "They changed it to the BAU. Um, it's a part of the NCAVC, the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, which is also part of this thing called CIRG, the Critical Incident Response Group, and—"

She felt someone bump her shoulder. She looked up at Hotch, who was frowning and gave him a sheepish smile. Beside him, Inspector Zhang was awkwardly standing there, trying to be polite but was clearly getting bored, as was the rest of the room. She sighed and pushed herself off the wall and went to stand beside Reid.

She rested her hand on his arm gently, and he immediately went silent. He let out a breath, almost relieved and he let her take over the floor.

"What my colleague is trying to say is we'd love to know how you can help us," Caroline said, looking at each of the college students. They perked up and she even got one of the girls in the back to smile.

The boy sitting in the front closed his black folder and stood up from his chair. He was a short, impish-looking kid. The top of his head barely hit Caroline's shoulders and he walked with extremely confidence as he approached her. She didn't like the smug look and arrogant smile on his face. If she'd ever seen an asshole before, this was it.

The boy reached for the lightbulb in Spencer's hands. "May I, please?" Reid handed him the bulb carefully. "Thank you."

Both Hotch and Inspector Zhang migrated towards the boy and he held up the lightbulb in front of her face."

"See this?" He placed his pointer finger against the side of the bulb and made a twisting motion. "Drill a hole in the side, fill it with gasoline or whatever's good and flammable. Turn the light on. Boom!" The arrogant student looked at her smugly. "That is what went down, didn't it?"

"The stuff's all over the net." A small, mousey girl with light brown hair spoke up in the back. Everyone in the room turned and looked at her.

"Wanna know how to make a Molotov Cocktail that sets itself on fire?" She held up her hand and began naming ingredients off. "Potassium, sulfur, and normal sugar. Sugar—sugar, which is—"

"Not exactly plutonium." The guy said, tapping the lightbulb against his fingertips. "You could get the stuff anywhere."

"Sugar from the supermarket." The girl remarked, twisting a small golden cross hanging from her neck. Caroline stared at her.

"But you don't have to be a Chem major to know that." She told the shy girl.

"Do you think it's a Chemistry student?" Zhang asked the student.

"You wanna know what I think?" The guy interjected before the girl could speak, walking in front of the FBI agents. He held the lightbulb to his forehead. "I think it would be a good time to take the semester off."

He handed the lightbulb back to Reid as Caroline watched him saunter back to his desk. Maybe it was because she was tired or it had been a long day, but something felt off about the case.

And whatever it was, it was really starting to eat away at her.

After the interview, Hotch, Reid, and Caroline piled into the elevator to head back to the hotel. It was late and everyone was tired. There were no current leads, so it was a waste of resources to continue to look for something that wasn't there. Hopefully, their search turned up something tomorrow.

Just as the elevator doors were about to close, the smug boy from the Chemistry lab stepped in carrying a stack of books, along with his book bag strapped to his shoulder. The three profilers stared at him, but none of them said a word as he settled in the elevator.

Hotch reached toward the keypad on the left side of the door and pressed the button labeled 'L' for lobby in big, bolded lettering. The buttons flashed red for a split second before making a quiet ringing noise and turning off. He frowned at the button, confused when the elevator didn't start moving.

The college student chuckled. "Hold on."

He reached past Hotch and pulled out a keychain from his pocket. He searched for a moment before he found the key he was looking for and inserting it in the key lock at the bottom of the keypad. He turned the key and the elevator dinged to life. The student pushed the lobby button and the elevator began to move.

"You need a key to get it moving after 10 P.M." He explained to them.

"So what are you still doing here?" Hotch questioned him, crossing his arms over his chest, his face like a rock.

The boy snorted. "I can't leave. We've all got projects. You know how to solve the three-body problem?"

Reid began to nod beside Caroline, but she leaned over and elbowed him gently in the rib. He stopped and gave her an embarrassed smile.

When Hotch didn't respond, the boy took his chance to show-off.

"It's computing the mutual gravitational interaction between the earth, sun, and moon." He boasted.

Hotch glanced back at Caroline and his face said it all. She rolled her eyes as the kid continued to explain his project to them, but she didn't say a word. She was just looking forward to going to the hotel and getting into bed.

Tomorrow, they had a serial killer to catch.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

The next day, Caroline was awoken by the sounds of her phone ringing. She was called into work at five in the morning. Apparently, the tip hotline they had set up yesterday received a suspicious call that Hotch wanted everyone on, pronto.

She slumped over the computer, rubbing her tired, drowsy eyes as she tried to set up a video-feed connection with Garcia. In the black screen, she could see the dark purple circles under her eyes and she groaned, putting her head, which was throbbing like a bitch, in her hands. She wasn't exactly a morning person.

A person relaxed in the seat beside her, and she peeked through her hands to see Reid sitting beside her, sipping a coffee. On the desk, he was pushing another cup on coffee towards her. He had gotten her favorite—straight black coffee with cinnamon and whipped cream on top. He continued to drink his coffee as she gratefully took hers and took a large sip. She swallowed, letting the warm liquid run down her throat, waking her up with the strong scent of cinnamon in her nose.

"Reid, have I ever told you how much I love you?" She said to him as she set her warm drink in front of her.

"Platonically, yes. Romantically, no."

She felt a hot blush creep up her cheeks and used her hair to cover her face, obstructing his view of her face. She couldn't let him see her blush, and if he did, she'd blame it on the coffee.

Because to him, it may have been a harmless sentence but it meant everything to her.

"Well, seriously. Thanks for the coffee. I can't get started without it."

He smiled at her. "I know."

Gideon, who was sitting across from them, cleared his throat, which got the whole room's attention, not just Caroline and Reid's. She immediately felt embarrassed. She saw the way Gideon was looking at her, his eyebrows raised with a small smile on his face. She glared at him and shook her head once before turning her attention back onto the computer.

God knows how long he had been watching them. She was just thankful no one else noticed.

"Okay," Gideon announced. "What do we have?"

Caroline pulled up the audio file from the link Garcia sent to her. She connected the speakers and turned up the volume. The team gathered around as she hit the play button.

It was silent for a split second before a staticky voice came on the line. The voice was thick and rough, but it was computer-generated. It was hard to tell if it was a boy or a girl.

" _Karen_." The voice muttered over the phone. " _I do this for Karen_."

"Play it again," Gideon instructed her.

"The call came from the office right next to Wallace's office, five minutes before the fire started." Derek read off the transcript on the desk as Garcia's connection was beginning to pop up.

"Play it again."

Caroline hit the play button again and the voice came on again, just as creepy and cryptic as before.

"Again, louder."

She reached over and turned the volume dial all the way to the max before she turned the speaker to face Gideon. He leaned forward as she hit play a third time.

" _Karen_." The voice resonated around the room. " _I do this for Karen._ "

Hotch tapped his foot in the corner of the room as he thought. He examined Gideon, watching him close his eyes in concentration. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure." The older profiler replied, shaking his head. "Something about it."

"Is this tape clean?" Elle asked.

Just as Caroline was about to tell her she didn't know, Garcia's connection fixed and the white-blonde haired tech whiz popped up on the screen in front of her, a huge grin on her face.

" _Hello, dollface!_ " Garcia announced when she saw Caroline's face on the screen. She rubbed her cat-claw length nails together in excitement. " _Long time, no see, sugar-pop. What can I do you for?_ "

She smiled at the whacky tech-analyst. Today, she had pulled her hair into a messy bun and wore a bright green blazer over an orange tank top, which kinda made Garcia look like a type of fruit. Her make-up was nothing less than fabulous, per usual, with glittery green eye-shadow and bright neon orange lipstick paired with a dark orange blush.

She loved Garcia because no matter what, she could always put a smile on her face. The wacky clothing and tech talk could brighten almost any crime. She certainly didn't belong in the FBI, fashion-wise, but she was the best tech-analyst there is without a doubt.

"Hey, P.G." Caroline grinned at the woman on the screen. "Can you tell me if the tape you sent us is clean?"

She clicked her tongue against her teeth as she typed on her keyboard in front of her. " _Not yet, Care-bear, but I can put it through some audio filters._ "

"Look, we need it as close to the real voice as you can get and anything that might be in the background." She informed her. "Can you do it?"

" _Okay, you know how on Star Trek when Captain Kirk asks McCoy to do something totally impossible, and McCoy says,_ ' _Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker_?'"

"Hey, what are you telling me, not to expect a miracle?"

Garcia grinned at her. " _No, I'm saying I'm not a doctor_."

Caroline chuckled as the tech analyst began to giggle.

"That's my girl." She told her endearingly.

" _Alright, love, I'm off to do my job._ " She winked at her as she reached for the disconnect button. " _Pip-pip, cheerio!_ "

And like that, Garcia disappeared off the screen and only the audio file was left.

Derek gave Caroline a dirty look when she looked up from the computer.

"I thought I was the only one Garcia gave a nickname." He mumbled to her.

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. She gives everyone a nickname, Chocolate Thunder."

Derek narrowed his eyes at her. "Well played, Lucas. Well played."

"Alright," Hotch said, interrupting the two agents, "we have a lead. Gideon, you and Reid canvas the campus and look for any signs of the arsonist again. Elle, you and I are going to check the Chemistry building again. And Caroline, you and Morgan have the Karens."

She sat up in her chair and inwardly-groaned. Dean Turner faxed over a list of all the Karens in Bradshaw earlier and the list was astounding. It was going to take Derek and her hours to interview them all.

But this was the job, and if this was what it took to catch an arsonist, she'd do it a thousand times.

Caroline rubbed her hands together and reached the thick stack of Karens from the fax machine. She divided the stack in half and plopped one-half in Derek's hands. He gave her a tired look. She winked at him.

"Alright, guys. We've got work to do."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"Thank you, Karen." Caroline gave a kind smile to the short, black-haired Native American girl she was escorting out of the command center. She opened the large red door and the girl slipped by, past the line of Karens still waiting to be interviewed. She didn't see the end of the line.

Caroline shut the door carefully and leaned against the back of it and took a big, deep sigh.

"Karen number seven." She told Derek, who was sitting at the table with the list. He checked Karen's name off before slapping the clipboard against his head.

The two profilers had only been through seven. Seven Karens. It seemed like so much more had passed than just seven. But yet, so far, none of them had a clue about an arsonist or any ex-lovers in their lives. Most of their stories were the same—they were just scared.

"There's gotta be a faster way to do this." He muttered, throwing the clipboard on the desk in front of him. He reached over and picked up his cup of coffee. "How 'bout we just change the first question to 'Have you recently dated a homicidal pyromaniac?'"

Caroline grinned at him as she sunk down in the chair across from him. "You know, speaking of questions, you figured out yet why the footpath killer stuttered?"

"Nope. You?"

She leaned back in her chair and tapped the arms of it as she spoke. "I know that embarrassment makes a stutter worse and that when you're flustered, it's more difficult to control the articulatory musculature of the face."

Derek snorted and pointed a finger at her. "You spend way too much time with Reid. You sound just like him."

She laughed at him, trying to play off the blush creeping to her face. "You did not just say that!"

"Well, obviously, somebody's been doin' their homework."

Caroline got up out of the chair and headed towards the door. She rested her hand on the knob and looked back at her co-worker.

"I still have no idea what causes a stutter." She said, sticking her tongue out at him playfully. He rolled his eyes as she cracked the door open.

"Karen!" She called into the hall. An older Asian woman from the front of the line stepped forward. She held the door open for her as she looked at Derek. "Number eight."

It was going to be a long, long day.


	7. Compulsion

**"** _The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe._ **"**

**— _Friedrich Nietzsche_**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**HOWEVER, THE ENDLESS KAREN** interview eventually did come to a close. Derek and Caroline interviewed dozens of Karen and not a single one had a clue or suspicion about someone in their life who had an obsession with fire. Which brought them back to square one, with no leads once again and no idea what the unsub means by " _I do this for Karen_ ".

After the interviews, Caroline snuck out to the Chemistry building. For some reason, she felt drawn to there. She wandered the halls aimlessly, desperate for some clarity.

Today was Caitlin's birthday, and she wasn't there. She hasn't sent her sister a text to even wish her a happy birthday, not because she didn't want to or that she forgot, but because she knew that it would only make the situation worse. There wasn't one thing that Caroline could say to her now sixteen-year-old sister that could fix what she was feeling, to relieve the pain and hurt she felt.

She was just stuck here in Arizona where she had no leads on a serial arsonist and a sister who hated her guts. Her life was beginning to sound like a cheesy Tom Cruise movie.

She walked along the halls, her heels tapping as they touched the tile, echoing down the empty hallways. As she was walking, something on the bulletin board caught her attention.

The board was covered in multi-colored graphs and equations. She glazed over it, but her main focus was the title. In bolded text, it read: **THE THREE BODY PROBLEM — Computing the mutual gravitational interaction of three masses**.

This was that project the annoying boy from the chemistry lab was talking about last night. He and his other classmates were working on it for their final project. She simply stared at the board, unsure what the tugging feeling in her chest was trying to say.

Suddenly, she wished Reid was with her. If he was here, he would be able to tell her something more about it. And, if she was being honest, she felt better when he was around. Less afraid, less paranoid. She felt more like herself, and not some useless shell of who she used to be.

Then, the sound of the door at the end of the hall creaked open and she whipped around, startled.

The patrol officer from last night stood in the doorway, watching her. He was even wearing the same bright yellow shirt and brown khakis. He gave her a friendly smile.

"Hey. I didn't scare you again, did I?" He chuckled. "Um, sorry. This is one of the buildings on my patrol."

Caroline took a deep breath, calming herself down. With everyone so frazzled about the arsonist, she was starting to feed off everyone's nerves. She was far more jumpy than usual. She shook her head and peeked through the corner of her eye at the bulletin board.

"I was just looking at the board." She replied, deep in thought. "The three-body problem. You know what it means?"

The guy scratched his head, glancing at the board in confusion. "Uh, no. No idea."

"It's physics. It's one of the great mathematical mysteries." She explained to him. Curiously, her eyes wandered to his neck and she noticed his necklace was missing. She frowned and nodded towards his bare neck. "You broke up with her. No more necklace."

He chuckled darkly, crossing his arms across his chest. "Yeah, I kinda wanna date someone else."

"What's her name?"

He smiled a little, amused. "Brian."

"Oh," Caroline said slowly. "That's a pretty good reason. She take it all right?"

"Yeah." He nodded, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, other than telling me that, um, homosexuality's a sin, and that I'm going to incur the wrath of God."

She laughed lightly, amused at the girl's word choice.

Then, it hit her.

"The wrath of God." She repeated, no longer laughing as she began to think.

What if the unsub didn't fit the profile because he wasn't a typical serial arsonist? What if he was the one just outside the box?

How did she not see it earlier?

Before the patrol officer could say anything else, Caroline turned and took off down the hall, sprinting as fast as she could towards the command center.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline burst through the door, panting slightly from the sprint across campus. The large steel door banged against the wall with a loud _CRASH_!, causing the BAU to swivel their heads in her direction, alarmed.

"Charown," she blurted out, her blonde hair bouncing along with her body from adrenaline. She had planned to say something more elegant than that, but she was too wound up to have control over her words.

"Charown?" Reid repeated slowly, his face contorting into a confused expression. He approached her carefully, taking note of her jumpy state before reaching for her arms, making her face him. The rest of the team began to gather around, interested in what the youngest member of the team had to say and why she was so riled up.

"Charown. ' _I do it because of Charown_ '." Caroline told him, trying to slow down her heart rate "The unsub isn't saying Karen. He's saying Charown."

"It's Hebrew for--"

"God's burning anger, I know."

Elle frowned in confusion at the young agent. "The motive is now religious?"

Caroline didn't reply as she watched Gideon pulling out the blank whiteboard someone had pushed into the corner. He grabbed one of the dry-erase markers on the silver easel and uncapped it. She suddenly smelt the strong scent of something between diesel fuel and paint thinner coming from the marker as he began writing down everyone's ideas.

"Well, you know, in a lot of religions, God is related to fire." Reid pointed out as everyone gathered around the whiteboard.

"Well, _Agni_ is fire in Hinduism," Hotch stated. "And the Jews see God as a pillar of fire, and Christians worship God as a consuming fire."

As the discussion began, Elle started passing out lunch Derek had picked up for them earlier. She handed Caroline a chicken salad, which she immediately passed to Spencer, completely uninterested in eating at the moment.

"Okay, so we're looking for a theology major." Derek reasoned as he took a sandwich from Elle.

"Or maybe he's punishing the other students for their sins," Caroline suggested as Reid inspected the salad she handed him. His nose scrunched together and he passed the package back to Elle, simply replying with, "I don't want this."

"What--what's the most sinful place on campus?" Elle asked as she took the salad from Reid and set it on the table beside her.

Derek scoffed. "Come on, Elle, when I was in college, that was everywhere."

"A fraternity?" Hotch said. "A campus bar?"

Caroline shook her head at the ideas. "No, because those aren't consistent with the previous targets."

"What about the idea of baptism by fire?" Derek suggested. "Aren't we all supposed to be tested through fire in Revelations?"

Gideon, who had been writing every idea everyone had been saying on the whiteboard, stopped and looked across the room, addressing everyone.

"Look, it's good, it's good, but let's please do not jump to conclusions. Religion might be a part of it, but it's not necessarily the prime compulsion."

"Gideon, rush to conclusions, jump to conclusion!" Derek snapped. "Who cares?"

"We are running out of time!" Elle muttered, running a hand through her black hair, clearly in distress. "We don't have time for second-guessing."

As much as Caroline hated to admit it, Elle was right. They didn't have the time for thinking. It was a new day, and given the unsub's escalated timetable, there could be another fire any minute now. Someone else could die.

And no one, not even she, knew how to stop it.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

The smell of stale coffee and ink pens occupied the silence while the team ate their respective lunches. Gideon had opted to sit alone, eating slowly with a look of deep thought plastered across his face. Derek, who sat beside Caroline, watched the older profiler with narrow, unsure eyes as he forcefully took a bite out of a sandwich. Hotch was too busy on his phone checking on his pregnant wife to say anything to him and Elle simply didn't care about the looks being exchanged. As for Caroline, she picked at her salad absently, stabbing the purple and green lettuce leaves with her fork, but never bringing them up to her mouth to eat them.

After Caroline revealed the religious angle to the profile, Reid had locked himself in the command center, rewatching the video of Matthew Rowland's death over and over again. She was tempted to enter the command center and eat with him, or if he was even eating, but she stayed rooted in her seat.

Besides the imposing threat the arsonist held over her mind, it had dawned on her what today was. It was Caitlin's sixteenth birthday, and she was hundreds of miles away from her sister. She had wanted to send her a message, at least wishing her a happy birthday, but she knew it wouldn't be well-received, especially right now.

Caroline wondered if Aunt Guinevere had taken her family out to see Charlie's grave yet. After all, it was his sixteenth birthday too, technically. He was still Cait's twin brother, even in death. She also wondered if her aunt would show her their parents' graves too, resting beside Charlie's. That was supposed to be Caroline's job, just her and Caitlin going out and showing their family how beautiful and wonderful their little Caitlin turned out. They even had thought about bringing Cass along, but Caroline thought it was unwise because of the endless questions it would bring up.

Cass wasn't even born when their parents and Charlie died, and she had absolutely no idea how she would explain what happened to a five-year-old without scarring her for life. She still had a couple of years of complete ignorance and bliss, there was no need to rush it.

How was Caroline to explain that she was the one who had to watch as her sweet little ten-year-old brother who couldn't harm a fly was shot point-blank in the head, powerless as she watched the life drain out of his emerald green eyes. _Caitlin's eyes_. How their father, a Marine Corps General who had spent decades fighting at sea and trained in every combat technique known to man, had his throat slit, and the man who did it made Caroline clean up the blood. How their mother, the one person who truly understood and supported her through everything, killed herself because the man who murdered her son and husband wanted the child she was nine months pregnant with. Their mother killed herself in order to protect Cass, and with a gun pressed to her head, the monster who decimated half of her family made her cut open her own mother and deliver her baby sister.

How was she ever going to explain that? How was she to explain what happened to herself? How was she supposed to protect her sisters if she could barely protect herself from the horror she relives every day?

How could she ever take away the gift of not knowing from her sisters? The act in itself would almost make her as vile as the man who murdered her family. Almost.

Caroline felt someone gently tap her shoulder and she broke out of her reverie, looking up with wide eyes. Elle had rested a delicate hand on her shoulder, her face a look of concern.

"Hey, are you okay?" She asked her gently. "You just zoned out there for a minute."

She rubbed her eyes quickly, trying to bring herself out of her thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking, that's all."

She was well-aware of Hotch staring at her from across the table with a far-more concerned look on his face. She didn't meet his eyes because she knew once she did, he would know exactly what she was thinking. She refused to let him worry.

Caroline rose from her chair and tossed her uneaten salad in the trash, keeping her head down as she walked. Her blonde hair created a shield across her face, hiding it from Hotch's observing gaze. She didn't glance back as she walked quickly down the hall, attempting to hold back the tears that threatened to expose themselves.

How was she supposed to help anyone when she was like this? How could she continue living like this, constantly stuck in the past?

Before she had time to turn the corner and run into the girls' bathroom, she bumped into somebody, almost falling over. A steady pair of hands caught her shoulders, keeping her from toppling over.

She glanced up at the person who caught her and Spencer Reid looked down at her, smiling.

"Jeez, Care, where are you off in such a rush?" He asked her, his hands still on her shoulders, rooting her in place. Her hands had instinctively latched on to the nearest possible thing to balance herself, which happened to be his forearms and she gripped them tightly.

Instead of responding, she changed the subject. "I suppose I could say the same for you. I thought you were in the command center?"

Suddenly, both of them seemed to realize they were still holding each other, and almost immediately they both released the hold on the other. Reid dropped his arms to his side awkwardly as she folded her hands in front of her. She felt the immediate calm when she was with him, the fear and panic being replaced with soothing peace. She wished she hadn't let go, but a small voice inside her told her that it was the right thing to do.

"I was," Spencer admitted. "But I think I figured out why the profiles never fit."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

After her scene in the hall, Caroline composed herself and, more or less, dragged Reid to the command center along with Hotch and Gideon, all curious what the young boy-genius had to say. Piling into the command center and closing the door behind them, all three profilers turned to Spencer, their faces expectant.

Reid's gaze shifted towards Gideon. "You were right to tell Morgan not to rely on precedent." He explained to him. "The fires thus far have been completely task-oriented."

Caroline frowned, unsure of Reid's train of thought. "So once they're set, the unsub is done?"

He flashed her a wide grin. "Exactly. The unsub is not a classical serial arsonist. He's someone who uses fire because of a completely different disorder."

"Which is?" Gideon inquired.

"An extreme manifestation of OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder. He does everything in threes. And if I'm right, he'll have to kill again."

Caroline rubbed her head as the pieces of the profile started to fit. Of course! Why hadn't she thought of this sooner? "It's a compulsion. He has to set fires."

Reid rushed past her and pulled out the small silver laptop sitting behind her. He opened the lid and was greeted to the FBI home screen. He clicked on one of the video files and the video of Matthew Rowland's murder popped up on the screen.

"There's a form of OCD called scrupulosity--religious obsession and compulsion." He explained as the video buffered. "An obsessive fear of committing sin, which creates so much anxiety that he's compelled to do something to ease that anxiety."

"Like setting fires," Hotch remarked.

Gideon rubbed his temples and sighed. "Where's the behavioral evidence?"

"Right here." Reid turned to the computer and started the video. Except, instead of starting in the beginning, he had started towards the end, before Matthew catches fire. As much as she wanted to shy away from the video, she focused in on the screen, listening and watching intently. "Remember the night of the three fires? We saw the doorknob turning against the lock."

A couple of more clicks on the keyboard and he zoomed in on the door, panting in on the doorknob. He played the video and, like before, the small knob turned a couple of times, churning and clicking as it rotated against the lock. The lock clicked three times.

"But he's not trying to get in. He's compelled to turn the doorknob three times."

"Well, what about the fires?" Gideon asked. "The first ones were single fires. If the unsub is OCD, shouldn't they have all been in threes?"

"They were in threes. A trinity of threes, in fact." Reid explained, pausing the video. "The first fire occurred on March 3rd--"

"3:00 P.M., third day, third month," Caroline confirmed, backing up Spencer's theory. It all made sense now.

He smiled at her as he nodded his head. "It's that convergence of threes that causes overwhelming anxiety. Obsessive-compulsive ease the anxiety by performing the compulsion."

"What about the other fires? Professor Wallace?" Hotch asked.

"Office number 3." He replied. "I checked for more patterns of threes. His class was on Tuesdays, the third day of the week. Matthew Rowland was in that class. It was his third class of the day." Reid's hand tapped against the desk anxiously as he explained. "If we looked into each of the fires we'd find a lot of patterns having to do with threes because our minds are so incredibly adept at seeking out patterns. But to the unsub, once that pattern hits, _bam_ \--he sets a fire."

Caroline began to pace as the wheels in her mind began to turn. Reid had said it himself--the mind was adept at finding patterns. So why did the number three register so familiarly with her?

"But if the target was always people, why did no one die in the first few fires?' Gideon asked Reid, his face pulling into a slight scowl.

His face began suddenly very somber, lowering his voice. He didn't look away from his hands when he spoke. "They were failures. Up until Matthew Rowland."

_Failures. . .failures. . .failures. . ._

What a weird way to describe attempted murder. A failure.

Everything is a compulsion for the unsub, something he can't control. The OCD would take over his life--his schedule, his social life, even his actions, and his speech. He wouldn't be able to control himself.

Then it hit her. The one person who had a knack for fires had been right in front of them.

The moment Caroline had realized who the unsub was, her eyes popped wide open and she locked gazes with Hotch, who immediately knew that she's discovered something big just by glancing her way.

"What is it?" He asked her, her big blue eyes focusing on him with absolute clarity.

"I think I know who it might be." She said. "And it's not a he. It's a she."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Clara Hayes was just a normal nineteen-year-old chemistry student. But, upon further searching done by none other than the Great Garcia, Caroline quickly learned that there was more to the college student than that. Of more immediate focus was her failing grades this semester. She was flunking out, making this semester her last. There was the stressor if she ever saw one.

She tried to conjure up a picture of the girl in her mind, the nervous one in the back of the classroom when Hotch, Reid, and her went to talk to the chem students last night. She wasn't very memorable, but she could remember the mousy, brown-haired girl that almost cowered away from Caroline when she would ask her a question. What could've turned such a young and seemingly sweet girl into a killer?

After identifying the arsonist, Hotch sent Morgan and Elle to search Clara's room. There had to be some clues or indications of her next plans. Maybe, if they were fortunate enough, they'd catch her there. But that wasn't probable.

Gideon was on the phone with the dean of students, setting up more security and checkpoints across campus. Everything was being set into motion. Wherever Clara was, she was going to be found, sooner or later.

"How did you know it was her?" Hotch asked Caroline as Gideon hung up the phone. Reid inclined his head towards the conversation from the paperwork he was scanning through, curious.

"When I was talking to her and her classmates, I noticed something—a ring on her finger." She explained to them. "She kept turning it."

"At intervals?" Reid inquired.

She nodded. "Of three. And she counted off the ingredients of a lightbulb bomb."

Clara Hayes popped up in her mind, holding up three fingers, smiling nervously, like she was almost scared of getting something wrong. She kept repeating the ingredients over and over in her head, like a broken record. _Potassium, sulfur, and sugar. Sugar. . .sugar_.

She never seemed like a killer.

Hotch nodded as he started to remember the girl. "The word 'sugar'. She kept repeating it. Almost like once she started, she couldn't stop."

"Yeah, it's palilalia. It's the involuntary repetition of words." Reid commented, setting his stack of paperwork to the side. "Howard Hughes had it when his OCD worsened."

"Clara and her classmates were working on a project about gravitational pull," Caroline told them, almost grimacing as she talked. "The three-body problem."

It went silent. No one spoke after that, but she could tell they were all thinking the same thing.

How could they not have known?

Not in the sense of they should have known, that they should have figured it out, not that they weren't capable. It was their job to protect people—people like Matthew Rowland, and even people like Clara Hayes. It was her job to protect those people. All Caroline has ever wanted was to help others. To be able to help and protect others from going through what she had to endure. And if she couldn't do that, what else could she do with herself?

The sound of the fax machine beeping broke Caroline out of her deep thought and she glanced over the piece of black-and-white print paper Garcia sent over. As she carefully took the new and warm piece of paper out of the machine, she thanked the Lord above that He had given them Penelope Garcia.

"16-year-old survives inferno," Caroline began to read of the old newspaper article, "The mother Ellen Hayes called it a miracle. ' _My daughter was tested by God. He tested my child and she came through blessed_ '." She glanced at the photo of Clara's burnout childhood home attached to the article and shook her head warily. She offered it to the other profilers, pointing at the picture.

"Look at the house number." She said. "333."

As the night went on, so did the search. Ellen Turner, dean of students, and the rest of her staff moved to the command center with the small group of FBI profilers. Elle and Derek had reported back on Clara's apartment, and from what they described, obsessed didn't even begin to describe the girl. Derek Morgan himself called it "a horror movie room on crack" with the works—newspaper articles, religious quotes about fire and burning, and plenty of materials to make at least twenty more homemade firebombs. They had yet to find the ones she had made previously.

"Security is checking the science building." Ellen Turner told the FBI agents as she got off the landline in the command center.

"Where else would she be?" Gideon mused, clearly agitated by the lack of results. It had been two hours since they first started the search—two hours they didn't have. They couldn't have much more time before she struck again.

The sun had already set and the night was getting darker and darker by the minute. If they wanted to catch Clara, this could be their last chance.

"We need to find the next pattern of threes," Caroline said.

She began opening drawers, searching until she finally found what she had been looking for in the bottom desk drawer—a map of the campus. She spread it out in front of her, staring at all the different compartments and crannies she could hide in. No, she couldn't worry about those. Everything the unsub does is a compulsion. She'd have to find the pattern of threes. And the key was somewhere in the building.

Reid leaned over her shoulder after a while as Hotch discussed things over with Morgan on the phone. The whole time, her eyes never drifted off the map. She couldn't find it. She was missing something.

"Any luck?" He asked her, leaning in so close she could feel his breath tickle the top of her ear.

She shook her head. "I'm getting nothing."

Suddenly, Hotch raised his voice, sounding alarmed and concerned. Everyone's head swiveled toward him.

"Morgan, seal off the building and evacuate everyone!" He demanded into the phone before hanging up and turning to all the wide eyes that were watching him.

He grimaced at all the anxious stares. "Agent Morgan found at least 30 homemade bombs hidden in Clara's closet."

Everyone went into DEFCON-One. Gideon began barking orders over the bustling security, trying to maintain some order.

If there were that many bombs, there could be more. And Clara could have them.

"We need to send our people into every building and have them start pulling fire alarms!" Gideon announced to the office, guiding the security to the door. "Go! Go!"

Everyone started sprinting out the door spreading out like frantic ants until eventually, it was just Gideon, Hotch, Caroline, and Reid that remained.

And yet, the same thought she had since the moment she heard the word "compulsion" plagued her thoughts, riddling her with doubt. She couldn't stop thinking about it.

"What are you thinking, Care?" Reid asked her, seeing her fine eyebrows pulled together and her lips puckered together in concern.

She had captured the attention of her co-workers, all of them staring at her, wanting answers that she didn't have. Just doubts.

"Clara Hayes is very likely a good person." She murmured. "Someone whoever wanted to do anyone any harm, like any other rational person. But there's nothing rational about obsessive-compulsive disorder."

Reid nodded in agreement. "Research suggests OCD involves problems in communication between the frontal part of the brain and the orbital cortex, plus the deeper structures like the basal ganglia."

Caroline grimaced. He wasn't getting the point.

"We won't be able to reason with her." She clarified. "We won't be able to reason with her because you can't reason with a physiological problem. She's not setting these fires because she wants to, but because she has to."

"What are you trying to say, Agent Lucas?" Gideon asked her.

She glanced up at him, her head feeling light. "We can't try and convince her to stop because we won't be able to."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

It was silent across the Bradshaw campus. Eerily quiet, almost too quiet. Students that had once been lounging outside on the stiff grass out in the courtyard, gazing at the stars, had scattered, running away in a panic when they heard the evacuation alarm. No one dared to question the alarm, not now. They all simply ran for their lives.

Except for one.

Caroline felt the crispy night air hit her skin, sending shivers through her body. She tugged on her blazer, hoping to preserve some warmth, but it was of no use. She couldn't be warm, not until they found Clara. Not until it was safe.

After hours of thinking, she had finally decided to take a walk and clear her head before joining up with Derek and Elle, the leads of the search team. She couldn't stand to be in the command center much longer, not when everyone kept looking to her for answers. When her family is looking to her for answers. . .

She had taken the easy way out when she left her sister back in Virginia. Caroline had done the thing she has always been good at: running away. She ran from the questions she was ultimately going to have to face, the expectations of normalcy, and the crippling fear and panic she felt daily. She didn't have a fear of the past; she had a fear of remembering, of having to relive all the memories that haunt her rising up and stifling her so deep in terror, she would never be able to breathe again. She had a fear of letting her sister down, her family. Would Caitlin blame Caroline for what happened six years ago? Would she grow to hate her, as Caroline had done to herself?

Sometimes, she was still just that sixteen-year-old girl that had been violated and tortured for weeks in her own home. Sometimes, that was all that kept her from detaching herself from life—the pain. It reminded her how she existed, that she survived.

But how could Caroline go back home to her family and explain how she felt? That she truly never got over it, that there was no "getting over it". That there wasn't an easy way out from the trauma they'd insured. She hadn't let her past go, she was too afraid to.

Somehow, she'd have to find a way to let go of the past. It wasn't fair to her sister, because she deserved answers. Maybe she wouldn't get them today, or tomorrow or a year from now, but one day, she'd get them. Caroline swore to it.

Even if it was the last thing she does.

Her phone cut through the dead silence of the night, ringing and vibrating against her leg. She didn't bother to check the caller ID as she answered the call.

"Hello?"

"Caroline?" Gideon's voice came through the phone, even and calm. In the background, she could hear Hotch and the dean of students discussing matters in hushed tones. "Where are you?"

She slowed to a stop, pausing on the sidewalk as she listened intently to the phone. "In the courtyard. Why?"

"We need you to head to the science building and check it."

"But I thought security checked it. Are they sure they've cleared the science building?"

"The guards made sure all floors are empty and no elevators are in service." The dean, Ellen, assured her.

Elevators.

Suddenly, she recalled a conversation she had earlier with that snotty boy on the elevator after the interview.

_"You need a key to get the elevator moving past 10:00 P.M."_

Which meant so long as there's a key, there was a possibility Clara could have control over the elevator. That includes the potential hostages trapped inside.

She glanced down at her watch on her wrist and checked the two gold hands that showed it was 10:05 P.M.

Her breath caught and before her brain had time to register what she discovered, her feet were moving and taking off towards the science building.

"She's in the science building!" Caroline panted into the phone as she ran. "I need to know where she'd go!"

"Gideon's meeting you there," Hotch told her as she sprinted, her hair flying behind her like a madwoman.

She heard a rustle of paper and the sound of the phone being changed over hands. Reid's voice came over the phone, sounding almost frazzled as he spoke.

"I'm not seeing much. She was a researcher at the lab, but all the floors were cleared--oh." There was a pause.

"What? What is it?"

"The third floor of the science building is under construction."

With that, Caroline didn't bother with a goodbye. She hung up the phone and hastily shoved it back in her pocket as she burst through the emergency exit to the science building.

The door hit the brick wall with a bang, but she was in too much of a rush to care. She ran up the emergency stairs by two steps at a time, her heels slamming against the glossed over the stone. She past floor one, then two. . .

_Please don't be too late. Please don't be too late._

She hauled the third-floor door open, shoving with her shoulder. It was eerily quiet on the floor. She had slowed her pace, her heels softly thumping against the boarded-up the floor. She carefully walked around the scaffolds and random tools lying on the unfinished floor, not daring to say a word. She unsheathed her gun from its holster and held it out in front of her, her eyes focused in front of her.

The wind from a nearby open window billowed the plastic covering over the unfinished walls. The pink and yellow insulation trickled down the plastic and tumbled across the floor as the wind blew. The plastic slapped against the wooden beams as each gust of wind came and went. She ignored the unnecessary sounds as she walked, completely focused.

As she rounded the corner, she could suddenly hear the terrified whimpers and cries of the students, begging for someone to help them. She stiffened as she peered over the corner, raising her gun at eye-level.

Then she saw Clara, resting back on her haunches, her knees pressed on the floor.

Caroline smelt the familiar scent of gasoline and her attention was immediately drawn to the lighted road flare in Clara's clasped hands, giving off blue and gold sparks. She was rocking back and forth, humming something to herself as she clutched the flare in front of her, waving it around. Clara was sitting directly in front of the shut-down elevator, with the door pried open and three terrified kids, including the smug boy from yesterday, were huddled in the corner, soaked in gasoline.

"No, no, Clara, please stop!" The kids cried out to her, begging for their lives. "Please! Don't do this!"

She couldn't focus on them, she needed to keep her attention on the unsub. Anything else would distract her and it would be too late.

"Clara," Caroline said gently to the girl over the shouts and pleas of the students. She lowered her gun as Clara's head whipped towards her, her eyes alight with a crazed madness.

She had pulled her mousy brown hair taut against her skull. Random tuffs of hair were sticking out, illuminated by the lighted road flare in the dim room. It casted shadows across her face, dangerous ones that lit her wide, crazed eyes.

Caroline took another soft, gentle step, her arms raised above her head with her gun held loosely in her right hand. She gave her a comforting smile, trying to assure her.

"I have to do this." She whispered to the agent, her fingers tightening on the flare in her hands.

Another step closer. Her eyes shifted towards the flare in the unsub's hands before settling back on her face.

"You know it's not rational, Clara," Caroline told her softly, like a mother trying to soothe her child. "You were trying to tell me."

"God chose me to be tested and now He's chosen them." Clara focused her attention back on the lighted flare, her eyes dancing along with the sparks. "If I don't do this, something terrible will happen."

"What's going to happen, Clara? A flood? An earthquake?" She reasoned with her, her voice pleading. "You know this isn't rational."

Deep down, Caroline knew there was no use in trying to reason with the girl. But she couldn't give up on her so easily. There had to be another way.

Clara grimaced, bringing the flare closer to her face. She squeezed her eyes shut and began to rock back and forth even harder. "I know, I know, I know," she chanted.

"Then resist."

"I can't." Clara cried out as Caroline got closer to her. The pleas of her classmates grew louder, knowing she was on her breaking point. They were begging her to stop. "They must be tested. God's wrath. . ."

Caroline slowly brought her gun down and leveled it on the unsub's leg. Please, don't let it come to this. "Clara, you told me it was a chemistry student, remember? You left the message about Charown."

The flames flicked and danced as Clara began to shake and rock. She began chanting, "Charown, Charon, Moloch," the names of ancient forsaken gods, in an endless cycle, ignoring Caroline.

"You want to stop, I know you do."

"Father, Son. . ."

"Clara, please, don't do it."

"Holy Ghost," Clara raised her hands high above her head, ignoring her pleas. "God chose them!"

And before Clara could throw the flare into the elevator, Caroline pulled the trigger, hitting the girl right in the leg. She cried out and the flare dropped to the ground, the cylinder of pure red and blue sparks rolled towards the opened elevator slot.

The students screamed as the flare rolled towards them in the elevator, but Caroline ran forward and crushed it with her sharp heel, effectively putting out the flame before it ever reached the door.

The screams stopped the moment the students realized it was out. That they were safe. The screams were then replaced with whimpers and tears of relief.

Gideon, who had been watching the exchange between the unsub and Caroline behind a wall, came over beside the young agent and focused his gun on a moaning Clara, whose hand was shakily feeling the wound where she had been shot. She was in shock, but she'd live.

"I thought you said not to reason with her." He told her, never taking his eyes off of Clara.

Caroline didn't say a word as she took her foot off the burnt-out flare and kicked it away from the elevator of traumatized students.

She knew what it looked like and she knew what she had said earlier. There wasn't any reasoning with her. Caroline knew it and Gideon knew it. But her job wasn't to give up on people. The profile may have said it was pointless, but to her, she tried her best. She could live with knowing she tried to save the girl.

She would later tell him that she was just stalling, waiting for the right time to disarm her. But, for now, Caroline told herself that she had tried, and that was all she could have done.

She didn't need to answer that.


	8. Heirloom

**"** _Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself._ **"**

**— _William Faulkner_**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**CAROLINE SLOWLY LOWERED HERSELF** into the plush leather seat of the BAU's jet, tossing her bags carelessly in the chair beside her. She sighed tiredly, leaning back and closed her eyes, trying to get a moment's rest. Besides her and the captain of the jet, tucked away in the cockpit of the running plane, the jet was empty and completely silent. She had gotten here earlier than planned, but she needed a moment to clear her head.

After Clara was arrested, they placed her in a mental hospital while awaiting her trial. She didn't know what would happen to the girl, but whatever it was, she hoped it wasn't too cruel of a fate. Despite the fact that Clara Hayes killed two people, she just needed some help. And if she had received it, a feeling taunted Caroline that Clara could've been saved from whatever her life has become now.

And on top of that, it was still Caitlin's birthday—at least for a couple more hours. Unless Caroline could get to her aunt's house the moment she lands, there was no way she could make it. She was going to miss her sister's birthday. The very thought of it made her stomach churn.

The sound of someone walking up the steel steps, their shoes clicking the metal loudly as the person boarded the empty plane, caused her to finally stir. Caroline opened her eyes reluctantly, groaning as she turned around in her seat at the new arrival.

 _There goes peace and quiet_ , she thought to herself, shaking her head. Then again, with a team like hers, she didn't get much quiet to begin with.

Gideon appeared in the aisle of the jet, carrying his small go-bag strapped across his shoulders. He saw her turned in her seat, watching him, and he gave the younger girl and small smile as he sunk down in the seat across from her. He didn't say a word to her as he settled in.

Caroline bit her lip, watching for a split second more before breaking the silence.

"You know, I figured it out." She told him. "The stutter."

He raised his eyebrows up at her, curious. "You know why the Footpath Killer stuttered?"

"When we were talking earlier, that's when I got it. I told you and Hotch that I was just trying to stall Clara."

"Right."

"Well, that's it, isn't it? The Footpath Killer—you were just trying to stall him." She explained, giving him a smile. "You said, ' _I know why you stutter_ ' because you were buying time. You were stalling, but you don't really know why he stutters."

"I don't?"

"I looked it up. No one does."

Gideon nodded and rubbed the inner corner of his eyes warily. "There are some theories about a neurological basis."

"But they're just theories." She said, leaning closer towards him. She stared right at him, refusing to break under his intimidating stare. "What really happened in the convenience store?"

It was silent for a moment. The darkness of the night surrounded them, blackening out the windows, and it left a chill in Caroline's bones. Suddenly, Gideon's eyes started to mimic that same darkness, the burden of simply knowing. He glanced up at her, his eyes completely focused and stern.

"I'll tell you what I do know about a stutter." He muttered darkly. "I know who to provoke one."

Caroline opened her mouth to say something, anything, but the sound of more footsteps boarding the plane immediately stopped her. But, now more than ever, she really wanted to know what happened in the convenient store.

"Are there any regulations against drinking on the plane?" Caroline heard Elle ask teasingly as she boarded the plane.

Morgan snorted. "Probably. Hey, Reid, what's the rule on—"

"Actually, there technically isn't a rule on drinking on the job. Most of them are just societal conjectures. However, there are stipulations, such as excessive and copious amounts that influence the performance in the field—"

"And forget I ever asked," Derek mumbled, throwing his stuff in the seats across from Caroline and Gideon. Elle wasn't far behind as she sunk in the seat across from him.

"Well, whatever rules or stipulations there may or may not be," Hotch said, "there's no alcohol on the plane anyway. So you guys are out of luck."

Elle sucked in a breath. "Dammit."

Caroline rolled her eyes, smiling as Reid squeezed by her. She pulled her bags out of the way as he sat in his customary seat beside her. He leaned back in his chair, clutching his brown leather satchel in front of him. He cocked his head to the side and cast a sideways glance at her.

"Is everything alright?" He asked her, his eyes examining her face, concerned. "You usually always wait for me and we board the plane together. Did I do something?"

"No, Spence. You didn't do anything." She sighed and picked at the leather armrest absentmindedly, avoiding his gaze. "I just needed some time alone for a bit."

Gideon, suddenly feeling his presence was no longer required, stood up quietly and left the two young profilers sitting alone to sit beside Hotch in the front of the plane. Neither of them watched him go.

"What's wrong?" Reid finally asked when Gideon left. He lowered his head, trying to look into her eyes, but her head was turned away from him, shielding her face.

"It's just—it's just...I'm going to miss Caitlin's birthday after all." She murmured, stealing a glance at her bag resting on the floor. A box-shaped bulge protruded from the bag and Caroline sighed. She wasn't even going to be able to give Cait her present.

"How do you know that?" He whispered to her softly, trying to assure her. It amazed her how he could tell by one glance that she was struggling. He just knew. "We still have a couple of hours."

"By the time we land, I'll be so far away from my aunt's, the drive will be impossible." She fought back tears, her voice becoming thick. "It'll be too late."

It was silent for a moment as Reid contemplated what to say next. Suddenly, he sat up, his eyes lighting up with an idea. She watched him carefully, almost cautiously. She wasn't going to get her hopes up.

"I could drive you." He told her. "When we land, I can drive you to your aunt's house. We'd get there right before midnight if I book it."

She frowned, unsure. "I don't know, Spence—"

"Do you trust me?"

Caroline paused for a moment, looking into his piercing brown eyes. He was being sincere. She bit her lip.

"Yes."

He smiled. "Then trust me that I will get you there, okay? No matter what."

She trusted him. She trusted him with her life on a daily basis. But what if he didn't get her there before midnight? What if she did miss her sister's birthday?

She refused to let herself hope that it was possible. Because, if it wasn't, then she didn't have her hopes up and it won't sting as much as it already does now. To know that she was so close...

But, it was Reid and in that weird way of his, he smiled at her, and her defenses melted away. She smiled back, a small smile that wasn't much but it meant everything to her.

She allowed herself to not hope, but believe in Spencer Reid.

"Okay."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Ultimately, after a quick agreement that both of them would deny any involvement in their endeavor of racing towards Aunt Guinevere's house if caught, Reid turned on the sirens in the large black SUV that he and Caroline "borrowed" from Quantico's garage. Spencer whizzed in and out of lanes, the cars on the road parting the way for them darting up the street. He even ran a couple of red lights, which almost resulted in a wreck but the car he almost stampeded hit the brakes just before their car lined up right in front of the FBI's large SUV.

Caroline had never seen Reid drive with such urgency. One reason was that he usually never drives, especially on cases where Morgan and Hotch usually take the wheel. Another was because she didn't think he had it in him to be so...aggressive. Most of the time, he was meek and a little awkward, which was fine. Around her, he opened up and she liked him for how he was. But she had never really seen him so wound-up before now, hollering at anybody who got in their way and taking questionable roads. If she was being completely honest, she kinda liked how he took it upon himself to be in charge. It was a different side of Spencer Reid Caroline didn't know existed, but she liked it.

He truly was doing everything to get her to her aunt's house before midnight. She smiled a little and clutched the small jewelry box closer to her chest, thinking of some weird, twisted fairytale. Instead of the princess running away from the ball before midnight and leaving behind her shoe for the prince to find, Prince Charming was the one racing her home before time ran out.

It was a good thing Caroline's life wasn't a fairytale.

After two more close-call accidents, Reid finally pulled to a halt in front of Aunt Guinevere's house, the brakes screeching as the SUV slowed to a stop. He parked the car and checked the digital clock on the dashboard before turning to beam at her.

"11:55!" He exclaimed, beating his palms against the steering wheel in excitement. "I can't believe we actually made it!"

Caroline said nothing. She knew she should've been thanking him and running to the door in the dramatic way movies portray, but she was utterly frozen. Her eyes were locked on her aunt's old Victorian house and she could feel her stomach churn with anxiety.

Reid quickly realized something wasn't right. His smile disappeared. "Care, we made it. Why aren't you going inside?"

"I don't know," she admitted to him, her eyes still locked on the house, "I just—I guess I'm scared. Of what she'll say if she'll even forgive me."

And that was true. If Cait decided to forgive her, she would then be faced with all the questions she had about her parents' and Charlie's deaths. She would have to reopen all those deep, hidden wounds.

"You know, the average person doesn't truly forgive, they actually let their emotions fester underneath until either the issue is resolved or someone breaks."

Her head turned to give him a wide-eyed stare. "And how is that suppose to assure me?"

He gave her a small smile. "Because if I had someone as amazing and wonderful as you apologizing to me, I would forgive them in a heartbeat."

Caroline was at a loss for words. Just like that, all her fears were gone. She no longer feared Caitlin and her questions, if she so had them.

Spencer Reid thinks she's amazing.

She leaned over and kissed his cheek softly, just a graze of her lips. He suddenly went very still as she moved her lips up to his ear, her nose brushing the side of his face with the gentleness of a feather. She murmured, her voice like a wisp of air at his ear, "Thank you, Reid. For everything."

She didn't pause to listen if he had anything in response. She didn't even see his reaction. She didn't want to ruin the moment.

With the small precious velvet box she clutched with utter care and precaution to her chest, Caroline slipped out of the car and into the still night.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Despite how late it was, Aunt Guinevere had answered the door without a moment's hesitation and welcomed her eldest niece with open arms. Caroline glanced over her appearance, the dark circles, and the evident exhaustion mirrored in her green eyes told her that her aunt had probably stayed up all night, waiting for her.

Her aunt didn't question why Caroline was here at such a late hour of the night. She simply pointed to the oak staircase behind her with a gentle smile.

Caroline gave her aunt a quick rub on the shoulder, a gesture of gratitude, as she entered the house quietly as she could. She walked up the steps without saying a word, trying not to wake the rest of her slumbering family.

Caitlin's room was the first door on the left upstairs. On the old Victorian oak door hung a small whiteboard that had been tacked up with two small yellow push-pins. The board was covered in Cait's handwriting—most were doodles in red and blue marker of flowers and whatever else her sister thought was cute at the time, but in the center she had written _DO NOT DISTURB_ in large cursive letters, the message underlined twice with thick black lines.

Caroline chuckled as she approached the door. She ignored the frigid wind of teen rebellion airing from the message as she stood in the hallway as quietly as she could, her heels creaking against the floorboards as she shifted her weight from her toes to her heels.

She brought her hand up to the door and knock softly once, then twice. There was no answer.

Caroline reached for the doorknob and turned it. The hinges creaked as the door opened, revealing her sister's bedroom.

A summer ago, Caitlin had wanted to paint her room from the bright pink she had chosen when she was eleven to a "more adult" color—like maroon or beige. After a discussion about what being an adult really was and what she really wanted to paint her room (because, seriously, beige? Which one of her friends talked her into that?), Caroline had somehow talked her down from painting over the still bright pink paint on the walls. But they did get her new furniture because the older stuff from their childhood home was getting a little beat-up. They had replaced the old pine dresser, nightstand, and vanity with white-washed wooden ones, all of the objects pushed against the walls.

And pushed against the far wall, alongside the window, was Caitlin's bed, with her butterfly covers pulled over her sleeping form.

She smiled at her sleeping sister as she leaned against the doorway. "You can get up now, Cait. I know you aren't asleep."

One green eye peeked open at her. Her sister grumbled. "How did you know?"

Caroline slipped into the room and shut the door behind her with a soft click. "Because when you fall asleep, your eyebrows do this twitchy-thing. It's cute."

Caitlin didn't reply. She carefully sat up in the bed as she deliberated what to say next.

"What are you doing here, Caroline?" Her sister finally asked, her voice muffled by sleep. "You missed my birthday. There was no reason to come back."

She left her place in her doorway and sat on the edge of her bed, nodding towards the digital clock sitting on her sister's nightstand. "Actually, it isn't midnight yet, so if you're getting technical, I haven't missed your birthday."

Caitlin didn't react. She just blinked at her, those green eyes staring at her in the dark.

"Anyway..." Caroline said as she fished out the small box she had tucked away in the inside of her coat. She rested it on the bedspread in front of Caitlin's crossed legs. "I just wanted to give you your present. If you'll have it."

The small amount of moonlight peeking through the window across the room barely illuminated Caitlin's face. Despite being mad, her sister couldn't help but examine the small velvet box set in front of her in curiosity. She bit her lip, debating on what to do next.

"No," she eventually said, crossing her arms stubbornly. She glared at Caroline. "I'm not just going to forgive you for flaking, _again_ , might I add, because you brought a present. I can't be bought."

"I'm not trying to buy you, Cait. If you'll just open it, you'll see."

She narrowed her eyes. "Why? What's so damn important about it?"

"Just...open it."

After a short, but incredibly tense moment, with Caitlin's eyes never leaving hers, her sister eventually caved. She puffed her breath, her cheeks bubbling out. She snatched the present off the bedspread and gritted her teeth as she unclasped the metal lock and lifted the lid

The moment Caitlin laid eyes on the necklace, her demeanor changed in a second. Her green eyes, which had once been filled in anger and exhaustion, were replaced with longing. The young blonde's lip began to quiver as she beheld her present.

"Is this..." Caitlin covered her mouth with her hand, not sure whether to cry or scream. "This can't be it."

"It is." Caroline smiled, peering at her younger sister's face. She wasn't sure what she was looking for. Joy? Fear? Sadness?

Caitlin delicately lifted the necklace out of the box, holding it by the thin gold chain. In her hand lay a coin-size gold amulet. She fought against the urge to cry. Made of intricate bands of metal, within the round border of the amulet lay two overlapping circles, on top of the other. In the space that they shared were two small gems—a blue sapphire and a green jade—that gave the center of the necklace the appearance of an eye. A small gold metal line connected all the gems and borders together. It was simply beautiful—and it had been their mother's.

"This is Mom's necklace! But she gave this to you when she..." Caitlin swallowed, trying to force the words out, "before she died."

"Yes, she did." She looked at the glistening stones in the amulet, remembering how she received that necklace. "Mom was sixteen when her mother, Gran, gave her the necklace, I was sixteen when I received it; so, now I believe that it's time for me to pass the tradition on."

"But, I couldn't accept this. Mom gave it to you, and I know how much you love it." Caroline set her hands on her sister's small but strong shoulders. "You can and you will. Mom gave that to me because she wanted us to have a piece of her to survive and live with us when she died. She always used to tell me that the necklace," she tapped the cool metal border of the necklace gently with her finger, "would always protect me, as it has protected the women of her family for centuries."

"Gran always called it ' _The Eye of Balance_ '." Caitlin murmured. "The sea and the earth meet to complete the circle."

Caroline nodded. "I guess you can look at it like that, but Gran was always superstitious. I used to think it was made for our family—the blue eyes of Mom's family and the green eyes of Dad's."

Caitlin sat, still as a statue and just as quiet, as she gazed at their family heirloom. Her sister didn't protest as Caroline carefully took it out of her hands and slipped it over her head. The Eye rested at the base of her chest like it had always belonged there.

Her sister's hand slowly crept up and wrapped around the necklace, clutching at the amulet like it was a lifeline. She took a steadying breath and nestled herself farther into her yellow and pink pillows before the tears began to fall down her face.

Caroline didn't offer any consolation. She couldn't think of anything to say that would comfort her sister.

"Mom would always say that you would protect me—us, our family—if anything would ever happen to her and Dad," Caitlin said, her voice thick with tears. She wiped at her eyes, brushing the big, watery tears off her face. "That's why I was mad, not because you couldn't make it, but because Mom and Dad and Charlie aren't here with us. Aunt Guinevere tries, but she's not Mom. She never will be. You're the only thing left that I have of Mom." She bit her lip as they began to quiver. "Even Chris doesn't like to talk about them. You're the only one who talks about them like they were here like it wasn't just a horrible dream I made up. That our parents were actually murdered, Charlie was murdered and that monster is still out there somewhere—"

"Stop," Caroline murmured.

She opened up her arms towards her sister and Caitlin crawled across the covers, burying herself in her arms like she used to when she was younger.

Caroline rocked back and forth gently, trying to soothe her sister as she sobbed. She pulled back a strand of her blonde hair and kissed her forehead gently like she was a China doll.

"Why did you change your name?" Caitlin whispered in between sobs, her voice breathy. "We...we all used to be the Hales. And then you took Mom's last name after everything. I never understood it."

Caroline's hand paused over her sister's head. She began to chew on her lip so hard, she could feel the skin stretching underneath her teeth, threatening to break.

Caroline Hale had died along with her parents and little brother six years ago.

She would never be the same person that she once was, and she just wanted to forget it all. So she took her mother's maiden name and never looked back. She thought it would've helped, at least make her feel better, but she still had that aching hole in her chest that would never ever go away.

She shut her eyes tightly as she felt the pain bubble in her—under her skin, in her chest, her lungs. It suffocated her. She took a deep breath.

Caroline will never go back.

"I know you want answers, Cait." She whispered so her voice wouldn't break as she resumed petting her sister's hair. "I wish I could give them to you, but some things are too hard to explain. But I promise you, when you're old enough and when we're both ready, I'll give them to you. But right now, we're just going to have to live with it."

Caitlin swallowed in between sobs and nodded, her breath evening out. "Okay."

As Caroline wiped away her sister's tears from her soft cheeks, Caitlin sat up and stared at her with those large green eyes that screamed of sorrow and terror.

She was sixteen and she already had the look of a tortured soul. It wasn't fair. She didn't deserve it, she was just a kid.

Caroline had been just a kid.

"Mom would've proud of you—is proud of you." Her sister said to her, giving her a small smile. "You're doing something she always wanted to do—help others. Even though your job sucks because you don't get to stay home, it makes a difference. You...you save lives." She sniffed and wiped her eyes again, trying to look as solemn as possible. "I am proud to be your sister and I am so glad, out of anyone I could've had as an older sister, that it was you."

Caroline bit her lip as she felt the sting of tears in her eyes. She leaned over and pulled her sister into a tight hug, burying her face into her sister's shoulder.

"I love you." She murmured to her sister.

"I love you too, Care."

As she embraced her sister, she realized that, even though the man who had tortured and killed Caroline and her family was still out there, she wasn't alone. She may not have the answers Caitlin wants right now, that everyone wants. But hearing that her family was just as terrified as she was made her feel some kind of relief, in a weird way. She wasn't the only one.

She promised herself that no matter how far they went or what happened, she would protect and keep her family together.

Even if it was the last thing she did.


	9. Won't Be Fooled Again

**"** _Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble._ **"**

**— _Samuel Johnson_**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**SOMEWHERE BETWEEN SEARCHING** **FOR** the best types of baby formula and Lamaze classes on her laptop, Caroline felt someone staring over her shoulder. The smell of coffee and old books wafted over her.

She grinned as clicked on a Lamaze class that looked promising enough— _oh,_ they had water birth instruction too!

"You know," She said as she checked the times of the next available classes, "if I wanted to have someone hover over my shoulder, I'd go home to my little sister, who's five and thinks everything is the most interesting thing ever."

There was a cough and the sound of something hitting the tile floor. The object, most likely a book, thumped against the floor before the scrambling sounds of someone hastily trying to pick it up started.

"I'm sorry, I didn't—I didn't realize—" Reid's voice stammered nervously behind her. Paper crinkled and crackled as he adjusted his hold on his normal workload—a cup of coffee, a book (probably from the philosophy area of his vast collection, as he has been in a questioning-the-point-of-existence phase for the past several weeks) and all the reports and files his arms can carry without dropping them.

Caroline laughed at his dorky, but oddly cute, stammering. She twisted around in the and looked at her sweater-vest wearing friend. "Spence, I'm kidding. I don't mind the extra eyes. I could use the help, actually."

He came over and sunk down in the chair beside her, plopping everything in his arms down on the table. She did a quick count—one coffee (extra milk and cream, no foam), a philosophic book by Leo Tolstoy and five files, and two bound-back reports. It was light, for him.

She reached over and grabbed his cup of coffee, holding it in her stiff hands as she sat at the freshly polished round table. Hotch had given her the BAU's conference room for the afternoon in order to research all the things Haley had requested in preparation for the baby's arrival. It was supposed to be his job, but she had already finished all of her paperwork for the day and he was too busy to do it, so she just went ahead and volunteered to finish it. So far, she had found three promising Lamaze classes, two suitable baby brand formulas, and enough cute onesies to outfit a small nation of very stylish babies.

She took a sip of the coffee, trying to wake herself up from all that time sitting and staring at a screen. The moment she tasted the coffee, the cream and milk that Reid had most likely dumped in by the bottle hit her strongly, causing her nose to wrinkle in disgust. She stuck her tongue out, trying to get rid of the aftertaste as she handed the cup back to Reid, who was smirking at her.

"How do you drink that?" Caroline demanded, shaking her head. "That is disgusting! It's way too sweet, how much cream did you put in it?"

He grinned and took a sip, clicking his tongue and sighing as if he was refreshed. "Just enough to keep you from stealing my coffee again."

She stuck her tongue out at him before turning back to the computer, still on the site for Lamaze classes. Reid leaned over her shoulder, intrigued. His eyes widened as he read the webpage.

"Oh, uh, Care," he said, his mouth a wide _O_ , "I had no idea. I—I didn't know you were..."

She could tell by the way he was wringing his hands out in front of him that she had surprised him in some way. Then, she looked at the website and his wide-eyed stare before putting the pieces of the puzzle together—he thought she was pregnant.

She burst out laughing, doubling over in her chair. She was laughing so hard that she began to hiccup from the lack of air to her lungs.

"What? What's so funny?"

"It—it's just...I'm not pregnant, Reid." She gasped out in-between laughs. She sucked in a breath through her nose, trying to stop laughing. It worked, to a degree. She had stopped laughing, but she had a large grin on her face. "I'm looking up those classes for Haley, who is very, very pregnant."

"Oh. Right. I—I knew that."

Before she could tease him any further, the rest of their team came into the conference room, a determined look plastered on each of their faces. She knew that look all too well.

They have a case.

Caroline immediately turned to Hotch, who stood at the head of the table, waiting for everyone to file into the room. She powered down her laptop and shut the lids, focusing in on the case.

"What do we have?" The blonde girl asked Hotch.

"Two bombings, both in residential neighborhood in Palm Beach. Homeland security and ATF have already been notified, and in addition to a profile, they want a threat assessment as well." He told her as Morgan and Reid started sifting through photos. "Do you have the list?"

She nodded and passed him the folded up yellow notebook paper with everything she had found on babies and care in two hours, including everything she bought. Hotch gave her a grateful look as he slipped the paper into his pocket of suit jacket.

"What do we know about the bombs?" Elle inquired, tapping the cap of her blue pen against her notebook.

Morgan shuffled through glossy crime scene photos spread out on the round table that were sent in by ATF before finding the photo he desired. He presented to Elle a fragment of the bomb, a curved piece of what seemed like a metal cylinder. "Pipe bomb packed in cardboard boxes. Package bombs."

"Sent through the mail?" Gideon asked.

"No," Morgan replied, handing the older profiler a picture of a broken glass tube with two gold metal plates attached to the side, "the other picture in your hand is of the switch that ATF found. The same mechanism for both bombs, mercury activated."

Elle frowned. "What does that mean?"

"There are contacted to a detonator on either end of a bent tube full of mercury," Caroline explained to her, showing Elle the crime scene photo that Gideon handed to her. "What it means is all you have to do is tilt the package to detonate it."

Derek Morgan whistled. "Well, look at that! You've been doing your homework, Care."

She winked at him. "What can I say? The bomb tech certification classes are useful and I'm a quick learner."

"I'd bet." He leaned over the table and gave her a high-five, grinning. "You're following in my footsteps."

Elle watched their exchange and rolled her eyes at the two profilers teasing each other. "So, what I'm getting is, the package bombs couldn't have been sent through the mail. The bomber had to deliver them himself."

Both Morgan and Caroline nodded in agreement while Hotch only frowned.

"Strange way to commit an act of terrorism," Hotch remarked. "Why go to all this trouble to kill just a few people?"

Gideon leaned over the table, placing his hands flat against the smooth surface. He glanced around at everyone as he thought.

"Let's recommend not raising the terror alert level for now," Gideon suggested to Hotch, who was nodding in agreement. "No reason to spread panic."

The sound of the door opening caused everyone to look up at JJ entering the room, walking too quickly and rushed in high heels for it not to be urgent.

"We got news," she told the team, picking up the small black remote for the flat-screen TV hanging on the wall. She turned the television on and tuned it to the news station. "This is just a local channel, but the coverage is everywhere now—CNN, Fox, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, you name it."

"So much for not spreading panic," Hotch muttered as JJ turned up the volume.

Caroline watched as the attractive newswoman stood near the latest crime scene, gripping the microphone in her well-manicured hands.

" _According to doctors, Gil Clurman, the bomb victim, is badly injured, but in stable condition in the ICU._ " The news reporter said with a large red-lipstick smile plastered on her face. " _Now, neighbors say that they heard a blast at about 10:30 this morning and police arrived..._ "

"If DHS doesn't raise the terror alert now, they'll look weak," Gideon said, shaking his head.

Hotch groaned and turned to JJ. "Make sure Homeland Security knows that this is everywhere."

She nodded and as she turned to head out of the room, a large BOOM! stopped her in her tracks. On the TV, people panicked and ducked down as a second explosion of fire and debris exploded behind them. The news reporter shrieked and cowered at her knees as the flames engulfed the street.

Once the blast subsided, police personnel and firemen scrambled, trying to see if anyone was hurt. Civilians cowered on the side of the street, terrified.

Caroline felt a sick pull in her stomach. _They were so scared..._

"Looks like we're going to Palm Beach," Hotch announced, looking less than pleased, "Let's meet at the airstrip in 20."

After agreeing on a time, everyone was dismissed to go collect their go-bags and anything else they'd need for the flight to Florida. As Caroline left the conference room, Derek Morgan pulled her aside, waiting for everyone to pass by them before speaking.

"Care, listen, they're gonna be sending us bomb fragments by this afternoon. We're the only ones on the team with an ATF knowledge," He told her. "So if you want, I'll stay behind to supervise the bomb profile and you can send me information from the field."

Caroline raised her eyebrows at him, grinning. "Morgan, you wouldn't be afraid to be out in the field with a bomber, now, would you?

Derek chuckled darkly. "You know, maybe it's not the bomber that I'm worried about."

She stiffened and her smile turned into a scowl. She crossed her arms and gave her co-worker a pointed look.

"I thought we were all past that," she told him curtly, grounding her teeth together.

"Care, Boston sent Gideon into a post-traumatic tailspin. How do we know that won't happen again?"

She felt the biting words in the back of her throats that she wanted to spit out at him, but she held back. She tried to remind herself that it wasn't Derek's fault, he was just nervous, as he had every right to be. Boston had been a tragic loss for the bureau; mistakes had been made and lives were lost. No one was going to forget that.

But this team didn't work unless everyone had each other's backs. Derek couldn't go around questioning Gideon's merit based on what happened six months ago. He made an error in judgment as each of them all have at one time or another. Derek had to let this go.

"Morgan, I'll tell you what," Caroline replied, trying to calm herself, "why don't we concentrate on profiling the bomber and not Gideon?"

He didn't look all too pleased with her, but Derek sighed, resigned. She took that as a good sign, or, at least, an agreement to drop the subject for now.

Caroline took a deep breath and said her goodbye before turning her back on him and walking away, never once faltering on a step.

Her mind began to think, trying to recall everything she knew about bombers and how they profile. She needed to know everything about the unsub if she was going to find him. And she was going to find him—even if she had to go out and scour the streets herself, she'd do it.

Maybe she was deflecting on what happened in Boston. They'd lost six agents and she had been in the thick of it when it happened. It was a miracle she had even survived the explosion. Caroline remembered having to pull out the glass shrapnel from her arm after the bomb exploded—all of it from a shattered window. Laying beside her had been a dead body, already too far gone before she had a chance to save him.

The bomber had killed those people without a second thought. She couldn't let that happen.

She wouldn't be fooled again.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Twenty minutes later, Caroline was seated in the jet and in the air, en route to Palm Beach, Florida. The jet seemed a bit emptier this time around, given that Elle and Morgan were both back home at Quantico, analyzing bomb fragments. That only left her, Hotch, Reid, Gideon, and JJ on the plane, all focused on the task at hand.

"The bombings occurred within 3 miles of each other." Hotch read off the case file as he walked down the aisle to his seat. "The first victim was a 74-year-old widow, Barbra Keller." He handed Reid and Caroline a photo of a small, frail older woman with short grey hair and tiny round glasses. She frowned at the photo of the smiling grandmother. "2 hours after that, Clurman got hit in his driveway and 45 minutes later...well, we all saw that."

Hotch sank down in his seat across from Gideon. "Jill Swenson, 34-year-old housewife, who lived across the street from Clurman. Of the 3, only Clurman survived."

"Is there any connection to the victims?" Reid asked him.

"One. Clurman was a partner in a $10-million condo development deal in which Keller was an investor, and a few weeks ago, the whole deal went bust."

Caroline leaned back in her chair. "Went bust how?"

"Geologists discovered that the land was on methane," Hotch replied, "the condos never got built, the land became worthless, and Clurman lost a lot of people a lot of money."

Reid raised his eyebrows. "So maybe one of them was mad enough to take aim at Clurman."

"Oh, let's not get ahead of ourselves," Gideon said, solely focusing on the pictures of the victims, "It's a little too early to theorize about motive."

"Then where do we start?" She asked him.

"From the beginning. What do we know about bombers?"

"Mostly male, loners, history of criminal activity," Caroline smiled as Reid began to spout out facts, "About 50% of all bombings are actually the product of vandalism."

"And more often than not, bombers end up accidentally blowing themselves up, so the first suspects you always look for in the bombing case are the victims." She commented, brainstorming. "Clurman was the only male. Losing a large business deal like that could've been a powerful stressor."

Gideon stroked his chin as he thought, his bushy eyebrows raised high on his forehead. He pulled out the picture of Clurman's car, which had been almost burned to a crisp in the blast.

"There's the crime scene. Clurman was the only victim who didn't get hit at his door." Gideon said, frowning. "Why? What was different about this one?"

Caroline didn't answer as she stared out the window of the jet, trying to think.

All of the bombs had gone off at the doorsteps except for Clurman. _Why?_

Why was Clurman different? Why did his bomb blow up at the car instead?

Her glance suddenly stole away at Barbra Keller's photos resting in front of her. Almost as if she were drawn to it, Caroline picked it gently and resting it in her lap. The old woman had been someone's grandmother, someone's mother, someone's sister, someone's daughter. She had a life and a family—just as Jill Swenson had.

Her stomach churned at the thought at of them being blown to bits or being burned so severely that their families couldn't recognize them. They didn't deserve that. They were human beings and they were gone before they had time to know what was happening. They didn't even get to say goodbye.

Caroline felt something brush her shoulder and she snapped out of her gloomy thoughts to glance up. Reid was looking at her, his eyes watching her with a controlled concern. His hand was on her shoulder, almost like a soothing presence. She sighed.

"Is everything okay?" He asked her, his voice laced with worry.

She risked one more glance at Barbra Keller's photo before she placed it back in front of them. Caroline gave Reid her best attempt at a normal smile.

"I'm great. Let's go catch a killer."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

The crime scene was a wreck. Gil Clurman's car had been burned to a crisp in the explosion; the expensive car no more than a rusted pile of melted metal. The blast from the bomb had blown out and shattered all of the windows—the windshield, the sunroof, and all four passenger windows on the side. Inside the vehicle was even more of a mess. The vinyl leather seats had melted into black slime, sticking to the floor of the car with a thick consistency. It reeked of burnt metal and gasoline, so much so that Caroline had resorted to breathing in through her mouth instead of her nose.

Glass and debris littered the hot pavement around her, which she avoided by stepping around as she examined the exploded car. Even the driver's car door had been blown off, laying fifteen feet away from the crime scene. She shook her head as she stood on the lawn of Mr. Clurman's very nice and very expensive house.

"Before Clurman passed out," Hotch said as he leaned over and peered inside the car, "what he told the cops at the time was that he saw the package sitting on the stoop outside his kitchen door.

Caroline frowned, pushing her sunglasses further up the bridge of her nose. "Why didn't he take it in?"

"Why didn't it go off until he got to his car?" Reid countered. "It's like 50 feet away."

Hotch stood up and straightened his tie as the Florida police CSI team worked on the crime scene, testing for anything they could get. "Joe Reese, one of Clurman's investors, was here before the bomb went off. The cops have ruled him out as a suspect, but he said he saw Clurman get in the car with the package."

"So maybe Clurman wasn't receiving a bomb at all," Caroline said, "Maybe he was on his way to delivering one, but he drops it or tilts it the wrong way and it goes off by accident."

"I'd like to talk to Clurman," Gideon told Hotch, who had been silently listening to their conversation, "Reid and I will go to the hospital. In the meantime, let's get a warrant to search his house."

Hotch nodded, already on the phone with the police and heading towards Clurman's front porch. She could hear him discussing the warrant with the police as he walked away. He was confident, calm. A cool layer of authority waved off him, almost reassuring. He was everything a leader, or a unit leader in their case, could and should be.

She remembered when she first met Hotch six years ago when her home had been a crime scene and her mother and father had been wheeled out of their front porch in two sleek black body bags. He had been new to the BAU—she could tell by how eager he was to prove something. A new profiler, looking to climb the ranks of the FBI. She had felt sick at the thought of someone analyzing her every move, how she thinks and acts. Especially someone who could be using her tragedy, her family's tragedy, as a stepping stone for career advancement.

Maybe it was because he was so serious with that ever-stern, unyielding face, or maybe it was because he didn't smile or because he didn't treat her like some lost cause, but she had felt safe. Safer than she should've felt after everything. He asked her questions—relevant questions, smart questions—that only proved his experience. Yes, he was a natural-born leader, there was no doubt about that.

But during every moment of the case, everything new lead they found, he told her in honesty. She had respected that the most—his complete and utter honesty. Nothing was left behind.

Eventually, once the case went cold and there was nothing else the BAU or the FBI could do, they left. But Hotch stayed. After the FBI had expressed their interest in her and her notable skills, she had been fast-tracked, with Hotch's help. He did his best to make her experience as smooth as possible. He trained her himself, specifically for the BAU. Both Haley and him, they have done so much for her, so it was why she didn't mind spending the afternoon looking up Lamaze classes or helping Haley with chores every now and then. It was the least she could do.

She smiled a little as she parted ways with Gideon and Reid, wishing them good luck as they headed off to the hospital before she turned on her heels and followed Hotch up to the crime scene.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Gil Clurman's house had not been as helpful as Caroline had hoped it would be. After consoling Mrs. Clurman, the CSI team had combed through the expensive house, searching for anything that would lead them in the right direction. In the garage, they had found a toolbox containing wires and cheap explosives but after a very straight-forward phone call Caroline had with Mr. Clurman's thirteen-year-old nephew who lived in Dallas, she learned that the bomb kit was nothing more than a toy for a bored teenage boy.

The hospital visit with Reid and Gideon had yielded equally unhelpful results as well; Mr. Clurman showed signs of genuine emotion and remorse. Gideon himself had told her there was no way he could be the unsub. So, that meant they had no leads, no suspect, and absolutely nothing to go on.

Until Morgan called Hotch at the Palm Beach precinct, saying it was urgent.

Caroline stared at the laptop laying on the conference table. She narrowed her eyes, examining the four images on the screen. They were of the bombs—all three of them with a photo of another bomb Derek had pulled from the FBI's database. Her stomach tightened and coiled. They were cylindrical tubes encircled with blue and red wires with a steel rod running through the center, all compacted with a fine explosive powder and mercury.

Caroline swallowed. Hard.

Hotch, Gideon, Reid, and Detective Morrison, the lead detective on the case, stood beside her, all completely enveloped in the bomb design.

"Morgan emailed these over," Hotch said, "The three on the left are the bombs from yesterday. The one on the right's from the evidence room at Quantico."

Reid frowned. "But they're all identical, even being made with steel enforcement rods."

It grew silent in the room. Caroline glanced over at Gideon, observing his reaction.

"Adrain Bale," Gideon muttered, staring at the bombs with a steely glare. She didn't say a word when he stood up straighter, his face a devoid of emotion. There was nothing she could say that would be useful in this situation.

Detective Morrison, a tall, gangly man with salt-and-pepper grey hair, looked over at him in confusion. "Who?"

"He held out agents in a standoff in Boston last year," Hotch explained to the detective, his face hard. "He took out 6 agents and a hostage with one of his bombs."

Caroline's arms prickled with goosebumps. It was so strange to her, sitting down and discussing what happened in Boston. It had become taboo at the field office, especially with Gideon around. She couldn't wrap her head around it.

"So you're thinking he's behind this?" The detective asked.

"Possibly, but he's in prison," Reid replied. "He's got kind of a cult following, like Charles Manson. It could just be a copycat."

Caroline shivered. As much as it sickened her that Adrian Bale even had a fan-base, she hoped it was one of his demented groupies. The last time they had dealt with Bale, agents ended up in body bags.

"There's one way to find out." The detective crossed his arms and barred his teeth in a tight-lipped smile. "Let's put the screws to this guy."

"No, no, no," Gideon muttered, shaking his head. He rubbed his eyes aggressively as he spoke to the detective. "Bale's too smart. If we want information from him, we have to handle him carefully, and even then you have to assume that road will lead nowhere."

"You're saying the connection to Bale doesn't help us at all?"

"No. I'm just saying let us handle Bale."

"Look, once Agent Lucas cleared that the bomb kit was because of the Clurman's nephew, it left us with zero suspects." Detective Morrison looked over at the agents. "So what do you suggest my men do now?"

"Proceed from the profile," Gideon said simply as if that was enough to appease the officer.

The detective frowned, agitated. "I didn't know we had a profile."

Gideon glanced over at Caroline. "Agent Lucas, would you mind going over the profile?"

She felt all the color drain out of her face. "Oh, uh—yeah, sure." He had caught her off-guard. Neither Hotch nor Gideon had ever let her a solo-profile by herself. The fact that he was letting her share was shocking, to say the least. "Well, most bombers are non-confrontational. This particular bomber I would consider as highly organized based on the meticulous design of his bombs.

"Okay. So what does that mean?" Detective Morrison asked, now curious about what she had to say.

"It means above-average intelligence. He probably has a skilled job, a trade, one that allows him to work alone," she explained carefully, "That's how he was able to make a sophisticated device without raising suspicion. Like a furniture maker, jeweler, etcetera."

"Background in explosives?"

She shook her head. "No, not necessarily. This bomber doesn't blow things up just to get a sexual or emotional release."

Detective Morrison crossed his arms impatiently and sighed, exasperated. She could tell he was getting anxious. He wanted to catch the unsub, the man who is killing people in his city. She got that. "Then what's this guy doing, huh?"

"Murder," she said, "My best guess is the bombs are just weapons. And these attacks, they aren't random."

"How do you know that?"

Finally, Reid spoke up.

"By the process of elimination," he replied, "We know that bombers fall into a discreet number of categories according to motive." He swallowed and reached for the pictures of the pipe bombs. He tapped the glossy photo with his finger, pointing at the re-assembled device. "There's the terrorist whose aim is to spread fear and the politically-motivated bomber makes a statement by choosing a symbolic target. Then there's our unsub."

"He made bombs designed to kill and specifically chose his victims by placing the bombs at their stoops," Caroline finished, "That tells us he has a direct motive."

"Okay, well, that's great and all," the detective said, "but how is any of this going to help us find him?"

She glanced up at the detective and handed him a picture of Barbra Keller, the first victim. "By killing those people, he gave us a way to find him—through the people he killed."


	10. Forgery

**"** _What is food to one is to others bitter poison._ **"**

**— _Lucretius  
_**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**CAROLINE WANTED TO JUMP** off a bridge. Or a building. Or a plane, without a parachute. Honestly, to her, _anything_ would've been better than having to shift through the mountain-sized pile of paperwork that sat in front of her, taunting her. Unlike some people on her team, she couldn't read 20,000 words per minute.

It had been a mystery to her why Hotch had stuck her on research—again. She was of more use out profiling than stuck in here.

As she read through the files—everything between the victims' financial records to their death certificates was lumped in—JJ periodically came in the small, cramped room that Detective Morrison swore was an "office" to check on her. The room was about the size of the shoebox and it didn't have an AC system. The shoebox was burning up and beginning to smell like a boys' locker room. Even all the fans JJ had stationed in the small, dusty room didn't help cool her down. She wiped enough bead of sweat running down her face and flicked the liquid off her fingers.

There was a knock at the door and Caroline glanced up to see JJ peek her head inside the muggy room. She crinkled her nose at the smell but didn't comment.

"Hey, how you holding up?" The blonde asked her.

Caroline snorted. "Honestly, not well. I think I'm having a heat stroke."

JJ laughed over the buzzing fans and rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah, I can see that. Are you sure you're not just trying to get out of paperwork?"

"Okay, you caught me," She smiled and held her hands up above her head, "But, seriously, have you ever stopped and thought about how much paper we use? Because I'm thinking we just chopped down a whole forest for this mess." She gestured towards the pile of paper on the rusty metal desk in front of her. "I'm not a tree-hugger or anything, but this is such a waste of good resources."

"You're preaching to the choir, Care. I hate files just as much as you do," JJ told her, "Find anything interesting yet?"

After JJ's press conference she had given about the bomber, she had been hanging around the police station, micromanaging everything. Caroline could tell she was bored out of her mind. JJ had done her job a little too well, and now, she had nothing to do but to check on the blonde, sweaty profiler stuck in a shoebox office and the endless stacks of paperwork.

Caroline brushed back a strand of hair that escaped from her loose ponytail. Her hair was damp from sweat. "Not really. The most interesting thing I've found is that Barbra Keller owned a coin collection from like the 70s, but that's it."

JJ furrowed her brows as Caroline went back to reading more files. "Did you say coin collecting?"

"Yeah. Why?"

The press liaison stepped into the room and began searching through the stacks of paper, her fingers lifting and heaving folders out of the way. She watched her friend curiously.

"JJ, what are you doing?"

"I am trying to help," she replied, still combing through the stacks, "I remember reading something about a coin collection—oh, here it is!" JJ pulled out a Manila file stamped with the FBI insignia on the front. She waved it in front of Caroline's face, pleased that she found what she was after. "Garcia dug through every possible angle and that included personal pastimes."

JJ handed her the file and Caroline flipped through it, scanning the pages. As she read, things were starting to look suspicious. The coin collection...

"JJ, I owe you big time," Caroline told her friend as she stood up and headed towards the door, the file clutched in her hands. "Is Hotch still here?"

The press liaison nodded, then smiled. "By the way, if you're thinking about gifts, I like alcohol. Any type, really. I'm not picky."

Caroline laughed. "Well, I promise I will buy you all the beers and wines you want at the next girls' night."

"I'm holding you to that!"

She stepped out of the cramped office and relished in the cooler air of the precinct as she searched for Hotch. She found him not long after in the conference room, mulling over the evidence board. When she entered the room, he looked over at her and frowned.

"Why are you so sweaty?"

"That's not important right now," she said, handing him the file, "but this is."

Hotch took the file and began looking through it. "What is this?"

"Something interesting," she replied, "Barbra Keller was having trouble ensuring some coins she bought. The insurance company thought they might be fake."

"What if someone sold her the fake coins?" Caroline went on, "She's on to him, then he shuts her up."

Hotch's brow furrowed as he read the insurance files. "Were these coins valuable enough to kill over?"

"She told the insurance company she thought they might be worth $12,000."

"All right. Do you have any idea who sold her the coins?"

Caroline shook her head. "No, but she had an appointment with a coin dealer scheduled. My best guess was she was trying to challenge the insurance company's appraisal. A guy named David Walker."

"So maybe he can help us figure out who sold her the coins," said Hotch, who was nodding his head as he thought. It was silent for a split second before he answered. "Caroline, I want you to go to David Walker's residence, find out anything you can on Barbra Keller's coins. You'll be flying solo—Gideon and Reid are interviewing Adrian Bale at the prison.

Caroline froze. "They are? Now?"

Hotch nodded.

She took a small step back, uncertain. Judging by his body language, the stiff shoulders, the tight pursed lips and rigid stance, Hotch wasn't too pleased about the situation either.

Bale had burned the FBI bad six months ago. Not only did he humiliate them, but he had also killed six of their agents and a hostage. The worst part about the whole thing was that they had him—he had surrendered and Morgan was handcuffing him when the bomb went off. When Gideon had coerced him to surrender, he didn't check the remote Bale had in the palm of his hand.

Later, when Caroline had performed a psych-eval on him, he told her that the emotional release he got after pushing that button was too great. He wanted to see the mayhem and destruction. He couldn't resist.

The thought of someone getting off on the pain of others made Caroline sick to her stomach.

"I'm heading to Walker's," she told Hotch as she turned to leave, "Call me with any new developments?"

"Yeah, of course."

Adrian Bale might get off on the pain and torture of others, but Caroline would really enjoy putting away this copycat bomber.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"Personally, I couldn't think of anything more boring than coins and old paper!" Mrs. Walker exclaimed as Caroline followed the woman outside of the Walker house. The blonde agent only put on a small smile and nodded, trying to act sympathetic.

Mrs. Walker was quite the complainer, her favorite subject being her husband. She was a short, squatty woman that barely hit Caroline's shoulders and she had a slight Southern accent that almost sounded condescending when she spoke. But, for her size, she had a lot of built-up anger for her husband.

Caroline had been questioning her about her husband and the most she got was how much her husband was obsessed with his work. Mrs. Walker was even as brass as to show her where David worked so she could search the place without a warrant, and she didn't hesitate to ask Caroline to confiscate his antiques either.

They obviously had some martial issues they needed to work through.

"Are you single?" Mrs. Walker asked Caroline as she led her out back to the garage, where David Walker supposedly does most of his work.

"Yes."

"I have a word of advice," the woman told her her Southern accent marring the words, "Don't marry the first guy that proposes."

Caroline raised her eyebrows, but nodded, amused.

"I wanted a pool table back there," Mrs. Walker went on, complaining now as they approached the small ratty garage, "but David insisted on making it his workshop. Now I can barely get him to leave that place!"

Suddenly, Caroline's phone began to ping. She started digging through her purse, searching for her phone when a sound came from the garage, loud and rumbling. It was the sound of an engine starting.

"Oh, what's he doing now?" Mrs. Walker groaned.

"Sounds like a car," Caroline said, still searching for her phone. She vowed that once she got home, she'd clean out her purse because it was a mess.

"I hope he's not committing suicide. I won't be able to collect life insurance."

Caroline finally found her phone and pulled it out, coming to a stop as Mrs. Walker kept walking, muttering about her life insurance. She rolled her eyes as she answered her phone, putting it up to her ears.

"Yeah?"

Hotch's voice came through the phone, panicked and urgent. "Caroline, it's him. It's Walker. He's the unsub!"

Then, things started moving in slow-motion. The garage door opened, revealing an old-model car—a deep blue Buick. The engine revved. Mrs. Walker stopped and stared at her husband's car, confused.

Caroline went numb. She dropped her phone, letting it fall into the grass at her feet.

"Get out of the way!" She shouted towards Mrs. Walker.

The tires squealed underneath David Walker's car as he peeled out of the garage, whizzing forward.

Caroline dove out of the way of the car and rolled in the grass, but Mrs. Walker wasn't fast enough. She watched in horror as the car struck the the older woman's body, never hesitating. Mrs. Walker screeched as she rolled over the windshield. The car braked suddenly, throwing her off the car. Mrs. Walker's body bounced on the ground like she was a ball, her limbs flying and her thin hair tangled and matted over her face. She thudded limply in the grass a few feet in front of the agent. She didn't move.

Caroline unsheathed her gun as Walker's car started peeling out of the carport. She was able to fire three shots into the back wheels before the car drove off down the street, disappearing in the mid-day heat. With two deflating tires, that car wouldn't get far.

At least, she hoped.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline crossed her arms and stood beside Walker's garage, leaning against the white wooden post near the door. She watched as the paramedics tended Mrs. Walker, now conscious. She had griped and groaned as the medics poked and prodded her, but, as far as she could see, the woman wasn't seriously injured. After the preliminary check-up was done, the paramedics loaded Mrs. Walker onto a large gurney and were preparing to cart her off to the hospital to check for any internal damage. She looked miserable with a heavy plastic neck brace strapped to her thick neck and bruises littering her face and arms.

Who could do this to their spouse? Did Walker really not care for his wife at all, even in regards to her safety?

Caroline knew people marry into loveless relationships. That was a sad fact of life. But Walker didn't even hesitate to run over his wife, to cause her harm or even kill her. It made her stomach churn just thinking about the sound of Mrs. Walkers' body thudding against the car as the unsub ran her over.

She didn't have much time to ponder over her thoughts before Hotch came over to her, his face stark devoid of emotion.

"You okay?" He asked her, his voice anything but concerned. He didn't smile or reassure her. Hotch was being Hotch. Always focused, always with his head in the case.

Luckily, Caroline didn't need to be coddled or babied. She wasn't a child and she certainly didn't need to be treated like one.

"Yeah, I'm all right," she told him calmly. Her eyes shifted to Mrs. Walker on the gurney and she frowned. "But Mrs. Walker..."

Hotch glanced back at the unsub's wife and shook his head. "Yeah, the guy's a real peach. Morrison's got a county-wide search-out for the car, uniforms are gonna try to find out where his haunts are and ATF should be here any minute."

Caroline nodded slowly, her face blankly stark. Hotch examined her face carefully.

He frowned at her. "Are you sure you're all right?"

She didn't want to answer the question. There were a lot of things about her that weren't all right, but this, Walker, wasn't one of them. She was just determined.

"Mrs. Walker said her husband spent most of his time in the garage," Caroline said, changing the subject. Hotch's frowned deepened but he didn't protest. She jerked her head towards the small, worn-down outhouse garage behind her, "Let's go check it out."

Hotch waved at one of the Palm Beach police officers that flittered over the crime scene as they approached the garage. As she neared the white-wash door, she noticed it was locked and they didn't have the key.

The officer Hotch had signaled at carried a large metal crowbar in his hands. He nodded to the FBI agents before he turned to the door. He stuck the sharp, pointed end of the crowbar between the door and its tract. He yanked down on the crowbar and the door swung open with a large cracking noise.

Caroline examined the door as they walked into the small garage. The police officer had used so much force he had splintered the wood.

As she took in the garage, the first thought that popped into her head was that this was the cleanest looking garage she had ever seen. Walker had meticulously organized everything—tools hung on hooks by size and color on the right wall, the tool chests and cabinets had been pushed against the left wall and cleaned to a polish, and the two wooden work tables were tidy and clean. Not a thing was out of place.

"Well, we got the organized part right," Hotch commented, running his fingers along the edge of one of the worktables. When he lifted his fingers up to see what had been on them, all he got was a little bit of grease and sawdust.

She glanced at the other worktable, curious. It had some weird experiment setting on the wood-top. Walker had plugged up a fancy looking amp machine to a bunch of electrodes, all of which were clipped to a small silver coin in a glass dish covered in a fine white powder.

"What's this?" Caroline asked Hotch, staring at the device.

"I've seen these. It's for electroplating," he replied, narrowing his eyes as he examined the coin, "Look at the date on the coin."

She leaned closer and saw that the date was faint and worm-down, barely visible.

"It's half gone," Caroline realized.

"He was using this to build up the metal so he could change the dates on the coins."

"To increase the value."

"Exactly."

"It's like what he did with Barbra Keller's coins," she said.

"Hey, can y'all come take a look at this?" The police officer wielding the crowbar said from across the room. She turned and saw that he was standing in front of a bulletin board, all with old newspaper articles tackled up.

Both of the profilers walked over to him and examined the articles. A couple were boring antique deals and sales, but the rest were all articles on Adrian Bale and his bombs. Even on one of the articles, Walker had circled his name in black marker and wrote, "The Best".

"So this was why he chose Bale's design," Hotch said as he read the article, "He was obsessed with his work."

Caroline glanced down from the articles to the small table directly below it. This workstation was out of place from the rest. It was disorganized, tools and equipment were scattered around and nothing had been cleaned. A dirty, mottled tarp was messily tossed over half of the station, like a cover. Walker must have been working here when she arrived earlier.

"He was working on something," Caroline muttered as she reached for the rough tarp. She lifted the fabric up and she stopped when she saw what was underneath.

There were countless metal tubes, wires, mercury, and steel rods setting all across the table and she could tell some were missing. Walker had been building another bomb.

Hotch's face hardened when he saw all the materials and he turned to the Palm Beach officer that had been standing behind him silently. "Make sure Morrison knows about the materials. Walker's definitely our unsub."

Caroline stared at the material and her throat began to tighten like there was a cobra cooling around it, squeezing the air out of her lungs.

Walker had another bomb. He was out there somewhere and Caroline didn't like their odds of finding him before it went off. The unsub was smart and cautious.

He had absolutely nothing to lose, and that made him very, very dangerous.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

People are cowards. It's almost a known fact that human beings are probably the most cowardly beings on Earth. Every time a man breaks up with his girlfriend over a text instead of in person out of fear of her reaction, he's being a coward. Every time someone rejects or undermines someone out of self-loathing, they're being cowards. And every time a bomber sets off a bomb that kills innocent lives because he doesn't have the balls to confront his pathetic existence, he is being a coward.

It is that simple truth—that people are cowards, terrified of something or another—that helped Caroline do her job. David Walker is a coward. He killed two innocent people and attempted to murder others because he was scared of being caught for forgeries. Two lives, gone in the blink of an eye. Someone's mother, someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone's grandmother just gone.

All because of one cowardly, pathetic man.

How was that fair?

But it wasn't Caroline's job to determine whether or not it was fair. It was her job to put cowards like Walker away and bring justice to the victims and their families.

"Nothing turned up on the search," Detective Morrison reported, snapping Caroline out of her thoughts.

He must mean the search of Walker's garage. After she and Hotch had discovered the bomb supplies and turned the search over to the local police, they had returned to the Palm Beach police station and regrouped with Gideon. Reid had opted to say behind at the prison and monitor Bale's internet and emails, with Garcia's help.

"Well, what do we know about Walker?" Gideon asked the detective.

"He's a quiet career criminal. Spent 4 years in prison for a series of forged checks when he was in his early 20s," the detective shrugged, like he was confused, "He's now 46. For the past 18 years, he owned a store which sold coins, maps, and historical documents. We raided the place as soon as Agent Lucas gave us Walker'a name." He shook his head incredulously. She could tell by his hunched shoulders and puckered frown that he felt shame, possibly even guilt. She understood how he felt. It couldn't be easy to learn that the man terrorizing his city was right under the detective's nose. "Most of his inventory was fake, forgeries valued in the millions."

"But the walls started to close in on him," Hotch interjected, "We talked to some of his clients, and he was in debt up to his ears and promising stuff he didn't have time to forge."

Caroline rested her back against a nearby desk as she turned to Gideon to explain, "Then Barbra Keller found out that the coins he had sold her were fake. She threatened to out him and if she had, all the forgeries would have been discovered."

"So he had to shut her up?" Gideon asked incredulously, his brows furrowing. "He planted all those bombs just to kill one little old lady?"

Caroline didn't speak, just nodded. Like she said earlier, coward.

"To throw us off, he made it look like it was much bigger than it was," Hotch told him.

Gideon stroked his chin, his eyes narrowing in thought. Before Caroline could ask him what their next move was, the sounds of shouting from behind her caused her to whirl around, surprised.

A lone Indian man stood in the center of the room. He had to be in his mid-thirties with dark black hair and wrinkled brown skin. He was sweating profusely and shaking, his mouth quivering as if he were crying, but there were no tears. She stared at the large black overcoat he had on in confusion. It was way too hot to wear an article of clothing like that in the heat of Florida.

"Please. . .help me," the man pleaded with a shaky Indian accent. His body shuddered with sobs. 

Caroline didn't understand what he meant until he pulled back his overcoat. Half the police station suddenly trained their guns on the terrified man, even Detective Morrison. Hotch, who didn't so much as blink at the man, stuck an arm out, pushing Caroline to stand behind him. She was too focused on the man to protest.

Wrapped around his neck was a metal collar, hooked by red and blue wires to a large bomb. One of Walker's bombs.

"Everyone back—now!" Detective Morrison commanded, his voice booming over the station. "We need the bomb squad in here."

"Please. . ." The man begged, holding his hands out in front of him defensively. "It's not me."

"Do not come any closer. Put your hands up and walk slowly back out."

Caroline took an instinctive step towards the man and the bomb. Hotch held up his arm and stopped her. He gave her a pointed glance and shook his head once, ordering her to stop. She stopped when he saw the very real concern in his eyes, the way his body shifted protectively in front of the young agent. Hotch didn't have his gun drawn but that didn't mean he couldn't sense the danger and the threat hanging in the room.

Despite how badly she wanted to go over to the terrified man, she hung back and let Hotch stand in front of her.

She wasn't a damsel in distress and certainly didn't need protection. It was almost offensive to her that he thought she needed protection. This was her job, for Christ's sake. She was supposed to take action and help people, no matter the costs. But, for Hotch's sake, she'd let him act like an overprotective fool if it made him feel better.

"I can't. He'll kill me!" The man exclaimed, his body tremoring in fear. She could tell that this wasn't the unsub. He was too confused and terrified to know what was going on.

Besides, a bomber would've never walked right into the police station with a bomb strapped on. That took guts and Walker was a coward.

"Who will?" Gideon asked him calmly, laying his hands placatingly in front of him.

"I—I don't know. He held a gun to me..." the man spoke, his Indian accent growing thicker as he began to panic. He gestured to the bomb hanging on his body, "He put this on me. He said...you'll know who he is."

"Okay, what does he want?" Gideon took a couple of steps towards the man. They were slow, careful. Almost like he was approaching a wounded animal. Or a terrified one.

"A helicopter and a passport," the man panted, glancing towards the exit, "He's watching. Once he gets what he wants, he'll send instructions to defuse the bomb."

Caroline looked over at Gideon in confirmation and he nodded subtly to her. She was already trying to think of the buildings around the police station. There was a 24-hour dinner, two hotels, and a storage building in a one-block radius. The two hotels would be too traceable for a wanted fugitive and the 24-hour dinner was too crowded to hide out. Walker was a coward. He is scared and needs privacy. The storage building is the closest thing he can get to in this area.

"Walker's close by," Caroline said, looking towards Detective Morrison, "Let's get snipers around the perimeter. Check the storage unit near here first."

The detective stared at her for a split second before obeying her and nodded to one of his men without taking his gun off the hostage. The officer then slipped back into the station and prepared the snipers.

"Okay, we understand," Gideon assured the hostage when he saw the panicked look on his face when people started moving around, "We're not going to leave you."

"Please...take it off," the hostage pleaded. Caroline felt her stomach twist in pity. He was so terrified, so scared. He was just a regular guy who wanted to live his life.

Now, if they weren't careful, that bomb would kill him in an instant.

Gideon took a couple more steps as he spoke, "Well, we need to figure out how the bomb's put together first."

Detective Morrison motioned behind him to the bomb tech. The officer quickly approached with his camera and began snapping pictures of the bomb and the metal collar locked onto the trembling hostage. The man whimpered at the sound of the shutter clicking each time.

After the bomb tech was able to get all the photos he needed, a couple of officers escorted the hostage and the bomb to a safe room in the very back of the police station. They had set the hostage in a metal-mesh cage, the kind used for storage. Caroline and Hotch stood in the other room, looking on from the bullet-proof window at Gideon, who had refused to leave the hostage alone.

She wondered if the bomb really did go off, would the bullet-proof window really matter if it explodes the whole station?

"This is a really sophisticated device," Caroline overheard the bomb tech tell Hotch, "It looks like it was probably made by a master bomb maker, which mean tampering with any part of it could set it off."

"So there's no way to just cut the whole thing off of him?" Hotch asked.

"Not without removing these wires," the tech explained. Caroline stood on her tip-toes and peeked over Hotch's tall shoulders at the photo. It was a jumble of red and blue wires. "See how they're threaded all around the collar? They could be booby-trapped, or there could be a hidden secondary trigger."

"How do we find out?" Detective Morrison asked him.

"Without knowing how it's put together, it's gonna take a while. I'll have to x-ray it, try to figure out which are the real triggers, but I don't think there's enough time," the tech admitted, shaking his head.

Caroline frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Because there's a timer." He scrolled through his camera and brought up a picture of the bomb. And sure enough, hidden behind the large metal tubes was a digital time. She cursed under her breath. "We've only got about 3 hours left."

Hotch raised his head and met eyes with Gideon through the glass. He didn't show any emotion—not even a nod or a blink. But Gideon knew.

There was nothing they could do except find Walker and make him defuse the bomb.

It was their only option.


	11. Emotional Release

**"** _There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough, and liked it, never really care for anything else._ **"**

**— _Ernest Hemingway_**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**AS CAROLINE STOOD OUTSIDE** the storage unit, she couldn't help but get a strange sense of déjà-vu. It hadn't been that long ago since the last time she had been in on a tactical assault with a bomber. And the last time that had happened was in Boston and they lost 6 agents. It didn't give her a hopeful outlook for this assault, paired with the raw feeling settling in her stomach.

Hotch adjusted his clear earpiece, the only thing connecting them to Gideon back at the police station. He surveyed the officers—SWAT had been deployed as well as the bomb squad—standing around, waiting for his command.

It had been her idea to go in the back of the building—to gain an element of surprise on him. She had reasoned that maybe if he felt cornered, he'd give himself up. She didn't know how that would work in theory, but she hoped it did. Nobody wanted another Boston bomber on their hands.

She crossed her arms as her stomach filled with butterflies. No, not butterflies—more like wasps. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she knew something wasn't right.

"This feels wrong to me," Caroline admitted to Hotch, keeping her voice low so no one else could hear her, "Why would Walker let himself be found so easily?"

"Because he wants to be found."

"Why?"

"To negotiate."

She chewed on her lip. "Yeah, but then we lose the element of surprise."

He glanced down at her. "Well, hopefully, we catch him off guard and he gives himself up immediately. If not, we take a hard line and make him feel like he's got no way out."

Hotch paused before turning to the team of officers in front of him.

"Remember," he announced, "we have to take him alive. Walker's the only one who can defuse the necklace bomb. Everybody ready?"

There was a chorus of _yes sirs_. Hotch nodded before turning back to Caroline.

"I want you to stay in the back of the deployment," he told her, "I'll lead the assault."

She took a step away from him, taken aback. "What? _Why_?"

"Because you need to watch our backs."

"No, I don't," she countered, shaking her head vigorously. She narrowed her eyes at him, glaring, "These men are perfectly capable of doing that themselves. I'm your best marksman and negotiator. Why the hell would you put me in the back?"

Hotch gave her a warning look. "Agent Lucas, this—"

"No!" She interrupted him, her voice hushed. She may be angry, but she wasn't going to cause a scene like a child on a tantrum. "Did I do something to make you mad? Is that why you've been trying to sideline me?" She sucked in a deep breath and tried to calm herself, but she couldn't. "Because ever since I joined the team, you've done this! I get desk jobs and paperwork. The only time I've ever been involved in any arrest or take-down has been pure chance. So tell me, what have I done to make you lose trust in me?"

He stood very still, a permanent scowl set on his face. "That's what you think? That I don't trust you?"

"Yes."

He grew silent as he looked over at the officers, all prepped and waiting for orders. As far as she could tell, they hadn't heard a word of their conversation.

"Agent Lucas, you'll be with me in the front," Hotch decided, refusing to look at her, "Let's move. We don't have all day."

Caroline didn't say anything as she followed her boss to the front lines. The security guard of the building had already unlocked the back door for them, now all they had to do was go in.

As she followed Hotch into the building, she hoped she had made the right decision.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline pressed her back against the wall, holding her gun in her steady hands. Through the door beside her, she could hear deep and heavy pants—Walker was in there. Her own breathing was level—calm, even. She had wanted to be in the front, so she had to act like it. Despite the nerves that ravaged her insides, racking up and down her mind, she didn't let it show.

This would not be Boston. She wouldn't let it be.

Hotch mimicked her stance on the other side of the door, his back and shoulders pressed against the beige-colored wall. He held his gun with his right hand as he waved the officers over with his left, clearing the area.

She met his eyes and he nodded towards Caroline as the officers filed in suit behind them, prepared for anything. She took a quick, deep breath before she moved, faster than a cobra strike, to the door, swinging it open in one swift motion. Once the door flew open, she slammed her shoulders back on the wall and waited for any bullets to come from the room.

Nothing. Either Walker was waiting for them to come in the room, he didn't have a gun or he was just too afraid to take the shot. She bet on the latter.

"David Walker," Hotch announced, his voice pronounced and clear, not one hesitation, "Federal agents." When no response came from within the room, he shouted again, "Federal agents!"

Again, nothing. Hotch turned to her and she watched his lips began mouthing a count-down. She tightened the grip on her gun.

She would not let this another tragedy, and she would go down shooting before she would ever let anything happen to the agents and Hotch. Especially Hotch.

" _1...2...3!_ " The moment he reached three, both Hotch and Caroline burst through the door, guns trained and fingers on triggers. She allowed herself a second—just a second—to assess her surroundings. There were rows and rows of heavy, bolted storage shelves, blocking most of the space in the room. Wooden crates and boxes were piled up in stacks in the small, cramped spaces that were supposed to be aisles. The only way they would be able to extract Walker was if he surrendered unless they wanted to let their guard down and get shot or blown to pieces.

Caroline peered in between the shelves, searching for Walker, when she saw a beady pair of wide, frightened eyes stare back at her. There was a yelp and a flash of fabric as Walker ducked down behind the shelves and hid from her.

"Walker, freeze!" Caroline demanded, her eyes unwavering from the spot where he had just been. Hotch copied her and focused his attention on where she was directing.

"Ok, please, don't shoot!" A small, timid voice came out from behind the boxes and shelves.

Caroline grounded her teeth together. He sounded just as pathetic as she thought he was. A sniveling coward.

"Show yourself," Hotch commanded. "I'll shoot up the whole room!"

There was a sniffling and the sound of feet shuffling. The top of Walker's head peeked up from the shelf—a receding hairline peppered with grey. "Ok..."

"All right, now put your hands where I can see them."

"I can't do that." Walker's voice was wobbly and thin, almost as if it was going to break.

"Then, I'll shoot," Hotch threatened, leveling his gun directly across from Walker's forehead. For a split second, Caroline wondered if he'd go through with his threat.

"My hand's on the remote," the unsub countered, "I told you what I want. The passport, the helicopter, the flight!"

"Walker, listen to me," Caroline was able to muster a calm, almost silvery tone, trying to assure the unsub. Her voice sounded pleasant and gentle as she spoke, "You're at the top of the FBI's Most Wanted list. I think you're smart enough to realize there's no way we're letting you go."

Walker's beady eyes widened in fear, but she quickly began to back-track.

"But here's my counter-offer: a chance to get out of here alive. All you have to do is give yourself up. Just slide the gun across the floor to me. You have until 3. 1—"

"You wouldn't let the hostage die!" He snapped at her, panic seeping in his voice. She was getting through to him.

"You want to find out? Don't give yourself up. 2..."

"Ok! Ok." There was a rustle of paper and movement before Caroline heard the loud scraping of the gun sliding across the floor. The gun stopped just before her feet and she slowly bent down to pick it up, her eyes never leaving Walker's. "I'm coming out. Don't shoot!"

Walker's head dipped below the shelves again and Caroline's stomach began to churn in turmoil.

"Walk to me slowly," Hotch's voice was agitated, rough. What was Walker doing? "Let me see your hands!"

Her hands began to tremble, but not out of fear. Every instinct in her body was screaming at her, telling her that something was wrong. She was missing something.

Walker had surrendered, but it was off. He admired Adrian Bale like some demented fan. He had copied everything down to the very last details—the bombs, the delivery. Bale hadn't surrendered, not in the slightest. He had even told her himself six months ago that he if could do it all over again, he would never surrender. The next time, he would take himself with the agents. 

Then, everything clicked. Walker wasn't a bomber.

He was a forger.

Caroline turned to look at Hotch, her heart pounding. She could hear it in her ears, feel in her throat. He slowly lowered her gun the moment he saw her face.

" _Run_."

Hotch didn't hesitate. He turned towards the officers, his loud, booming voice caromed and echoed off the crates and boxes. "Go, go! Everyone out!"

The officers swirled and sprinted away, escaping through the exit. Hotch and Caroline weren't far behind, their legs pumping as fast as they could go.

There was shrill ringing coming from behind her, but she didn't pause to see what it was. She knew they weren't close enough to the exit. This couldn't be it. This couldn't be how she died.

She could hear the rattle of the shelves and feel the heat as the bomb detonated.

Hotch lunged over and grabbed Caroline by the waist before the wall of energy could slam into them, shoving her behind the nearest wall. He pinned her against the brick with his arm, both of their backs pressed against the wall as the full force heat and energy of the bomb raced down the hallway. A full explosion of hot orange flames licked up and down the corridor, flinging debris of the storage room everywhere.

But they were fine. The flames didn't come near Caroline or Hotch.

As the explosion receded into black smoke and the sour smell of burnt flesh, she exhaled in relief, letting go of the breath she didn't know she was holding.

She coughed as the smoke settled through the hallway, thick and dense. Once she realized the blast was over, the relief was chased away by a heavyweight that sat on her chest.

There was no way Walker survived that blast. And that meant that there was no one to defuse the bomb.

At least, no one in Palm Beach.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline had been right about the bomb—it had killed David Walker the moment he had set it off. Luckily, it hadn't claimed any other lives, everyone had made it out safely before it had detonated. But, that still left the timed-bomb wired to the terrified hostage and by the time Hotch and her got back to the station, time was running out.

Detective Morrison almost was ready to evacuate the station when Gideon had an idea—a petrifying and dangerous idea. An idea that led Adrian Bale out of prison and in the interrogation room of the Palm Beach police station.

Caroline's stomach twisted as she watched Bale through the two-way mirror. He hadn't changed much in the six months since they had last met. His angular, sharp face was emotionless, his deathly-pale skin pulled tight across his cheekbones. His obsidian black eyes almost looked like they were sinking into his thin face due to the deep purple circles around his eyes. She could see that he had lost some weight in prison, and it wasn't the healthy kind. If she didn't despise the man, she'd almost feel sorry for him. He looked like hell, quite literally.

Dressed in a bright red prison jumpsuit, Bale sat quietly beside his sleek and professional-looking lawyer. He was toying with the metal handcuffs, twisting and pulling them, as he waited. Then, almost as if he could sense that Caroline was staring at him through the mirror, Bale raised his head slowly and flashed a smug grin at the glass.

She clenched her fists and backed away from the mirror, opting to face Gideon and Hotch instead. She couldn't let that sociopath psych her out. That was her game.

"Gideon, are you positive about this?" Hotch asked the older profiler, watching him carefully. She could tell he was waiting for some reaction, anything.

The last time Gideon had faced Bale, it had ended with him taking a six-month leave. He's had panic attacks, depressive episodes. Gideon had let Bale get the best of him in Boston.

But she knew that wouldn't happen again.

"It's our only option," Gideon simply replied, his eyes shifting towards Bale warily, "I'll be fine."

Hotch watched him with apprehensive eyes but didn't protest. He was right. They only had a few more minutes until that bomb was supposed to go off. "Okay. So, what's the plan?"

"Lucas and I will go inside and negotiate with Bale," Gideon explained, "and try to get him to defuse the bomb."

Caroline's head whipped up, her blonde hair slapping her face. She focused her wide-eyes on Gideon. "Wait, me? You want me to go in there with Bale?"

The profiler furrowed his brows. "Yes. Besides me, you have the most rapport with Bale. You conducted his confession and VICAP interview. He'll know you, he's comfortable around you. And blondes are his type."

"Gideon!" Hotch snapped at him, grounding his teeth together. "I don't think that using Agent Lucas as bait is the best approach—"

"Hotch, it's all we have," he interrupted, "Our best shot with him is to make sure he feels like he has power. And Caroline is not a little girl. She can handle herself." Gideon turned to her, his face expectant. "Can't you?"

She swallowed and she began to tap her fingers against her palm, trying to relax.

She could do this. She would do this.

It wasn't like she had a choice about the matter anyway.

So, she took a deep breath and mustered up the most confident voice she could before replying, "Yes."

Gideon nodded, impressed, before turning to Hotch. Neither of them said a word to each other as she brushed past, but she could feel the tension from across the room. Whatever was happening, it wasn't a fight over dominance. She knew that much. It was a fight over something far less important—her.

Or at least, a fight about what was best for her. What both of them thought she needed. She felt the agitation boil under her skin and she grounded her teeth together, preventing her from speaking. If she did, she was afraid she might say something she'd regret.

She was tired of being treated like an object, a pet. Her two mentors were trying to decide what was best for her without even asking her what she wanted. What she thought.

However, she couldn't be unreasonably mad. Because she knew their efforts, however misguided, did come from a place of compassion—a place of protection. Maybe they felt the need to protect her because of her past. Maybe it was because in their eyes, she'd always be that broken sixteen-year-old who had her whole life ripped away from her. Maybe it was because, no matter how hard she fought it, or how hard she tried to hide it, she wasn't okay. And that she might not ever be okay.

But that wasn't their decision. It was hers.

And she didn't need a man to tell her what to do or what to say. She would get Bale to defuse that bomb and on that, she would not waiver.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"We'll start with a transfer," Gideon said as he paced back and forth behind her, "You're in a high-security facility now. We can get you medium."

Bale put his chin in his hands and looked at the table. Caroline watched him with a hawk's eye—every micro-expressions and body tells. The way he slumped over like he was bored, the apathetic look in his eyes, and the exaggerated body positions all told her that he wasn't ready to defuse that bomb. Not yet.

"No. I want out of prison," Bale said, "A mental facility."

Caroline laid her hands on the table and interlaced her fingers together. Bale glanced up at her and she locked eyes with him. She didn't blink and neither did he.

"You're asking for something we wouldn't even give a bank robber," she told him, "There are minimum-security facilities—"

"I don't care," Bale snapped, squeezing his eyes shut. He licked his lips, almost possessively, "I want to be able to talk to people who aren't prisoners. I want to access...to people, things, the world. I want to connect again."

Gideon grew silent. Caroline didn't dare risk glancing up at him. If she showed hesitation, then Bale would have the upper hand. Whatever Gideon decided to do, she had to support.

After a long moment, the profiler nodded reluctantly. "Fine."

"One more thing—without which there is no deal."

Caroline leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. "Which is what?"

Bale stared at her before moving his gaze to Gideon standing beside her. He gave him a dry smile. "I want you to confess."

"I want you to admit that I beat you in Boston," Bale went on, "That I outsmarted you. I want you to apologize to the families of those 6 victims you got killed. And I want it all in writing."

She pursed her lips. Oh, Bale was clever. He pulled a classic power move—domination. He knew that Gideon took what happened in Boston hard, and he was using that to mess with Gideon one last time.

Well, she wasn't going to let him win. Not this time.

Caroline stood up and turned to her mentor. "Gideon, that's enough."

The profiler stopped and she looked into his eyes. She could tell by the determined look in his eyes that he was going to do it.

Gideon pressed his hands against the table, leaning forward towards Bale. "If I do this, you'll tell us how to defuse the bomb?"

"Only...if you do this."

"How do I know you won't lie to me?"

The prim-and-proper lawyer that had been sitting beside Bale finally spoke up.

"It's all in writing, Agent Gideon," she said, showing him the contract they had all signed before the interview with her French-manicured hand, "If my client refuses to give you information, or if he gives you information that he knows to be untruthful, the deal is void."

So, once it was assured that Bale had to give them information, Gideon drug out a piece of yellow notebook paper, and with a pen he borrowed from Bale's lawyer, he began writing. Caroline didn't a word as she sat back down beside Gideon. She heard the pen scratching as he wrote but she didn't glance over at him. She couldn't.

She was in Boston when it happened. She didn't need a recount.

When Gideon finished, he set the pen down and pushed the paper towards Bale.

The Boston Bomber shook his head, refusing the paper. "I wanna hear it."

The older profiler paused before reaching back for the paper he had written on. He pulled it in front of him and began to read, "'There was a hostage situation—'"

"No," Bale snapped, causing both Gideon and Caroline to stare up at him, "Don't read it. Say it."

Gideon was silent as he deliberated. He breathed, holding Bale's gaze for what seemed like forever, before he slid the paper away from him, towards Bale and his lawyer. He clasped his hands in front of him on the black-top table and leaned forward, his voice steady and clear.

"There was a hostage situation. I negotiated with Bale. He agreed to give himself up," Gideon spoke to the whole room, never wavering or hesitating. Caroline sat back, listening, with a neutral expression. They didn't have much time for this.

"He came out of the warehouse peacefully," he went on, "I gave the okay to send 6 of my agents in, and...and they never came out."

Gideon chuckled and Caroline glanced out of the corner of her eye at him. It wasn't an amused laugh. The laugh reminded her more of an old music box—quiet and broken.

"It was a mistake," Gideon murmured, shaking his head as he recalled the memory. She could see the pain and doubt plastered on his face from that day was genuine, "It was my mistake, I was...I was outfoxed by Mr. Bale." He looked up at the prisoner that sat before him. "By you."

"I sincerely regret having made the decision to send those agents on that day. And I sincerely regret and apologize to those families of all those who died that day."

Caroline glanced down at her watch and sighed. She turned to her mentor.

"4 more minutes," she reminded him quietly. But Gideon didn't answer. His eyes never left Bale's.

And she could tell by the way Bale sat back in his chair confidently, finally satisfied that he had the upper hand, that he was going to defuse the bomb.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline gripped the walkie-talkie in her hands, waiting. Gideon and Hotch stood behind her, their eyes trained on Bale, who stood barely a foot away from her. She didn't look over at the Boston Bomber, ignoring his dark, soulless eyes that were piercing her face, waiting for a falter in her cool facade. The only thing she was focused on was the bomb trapped onto the hostage in the other room, the timer slowly ticking down to zero.

" _Okay. I've isolated the wires connected to the actual device,_ " the bomb tech's voice buzzed over the walkie-talkie as he worked on the bomb, " _We've got one shot at this. It's either the blue wire or the red wire_."

The hostage was shaking, his breath too uneven, and panicked. He shut his eyes, his mouth moving quickly as he whispered something to himself. Caroline realized with a sick feeling in her stomach that he was praying.

It was her job now to save the hostage. She just had to get the color wire.

"Which wire do we cut?" She asked Bale. "Red or blue?"

He sucked in a deep breath, focusing on the bomb through the glass. "Red."

"You know if you're lying and this thing goes off, you get nothing, right?"

His voice was exasperated, impatient. "Yes."

"If we cut the red wire, it's over?" Caroline said to him, meeting his gaze. His eyes glistened with malice—and excitement. "You get to spend your time in a cushy asylum: bushes, trees, visits, nurses...and we get this man out of here alive."

"I don't see how I could be any clearer."

" _17 seconds_ ," the device buzzed in her hands, but she ignored it.

She didn't take her eyes off Bale. "The red wire, right?"

He nodded. "Yes."

Then, Caroline remembered what The Boston Bomber had said to her six months ago when she had asked why he did.

" _The emotional release I would feel by pressing that button...well, it was just a little too overwhelming to pass up_."

She clicked on the walkie-talkie. "Cut the blue."

Everyone's heads swiveled to her. Bale looked enraged. He bared his teeth.

" _Are you sure?_ " The bomb tech asked, unsure.

"Do it."

As the clock counted down, the bomb tech reached forward with his wire-cutters and snipped the blue wire. Everyone in the station froze, waiting.

When nothing happened, there was a collective sigh of relief. Caroline and Bale remained in a deadlock staring contest—his rage rolling off him like a fog.

She didn't blink.

" _You stupid bitch!_ " Bale growled at her, stepping forward with his hand-cuffed fists raised as if he thought he could actually hit her.

Before she could move to restrain him, Hotch lunged forward, seizing Bale by the shoulders and yanked down, forcing him backward. Seething, Hotch grabbed a fistful of his red jumpsuit and forcibly dragged him out of the room. Caroline only watched him go, her face expressionless.

Gideon stepped forward beside her, replacing where Bale had been. She stared out the bullet-proof window at the hostage sobbing in relief as the bomb tech began to remove the deactivated bomb. Despite herself, she smiled a little as a warm, tingly feeling coursed through her.

"How'd you know?" Gideon asked Caroline, smiling. He looked...proud, almost. Like a coach would smile at one of his players for hitting a home run.

"He told me six months ago. He said given the opportunity of pressing that button, he'd have no choice," She glanced over at him and gave him a smile. The kind that she could only give when she felt good—and she did, better than she usually does. "All I did was take his word for it."

Before he left to escort Bale back to prison, Gideon patted Caroline on the shoulder, a move that on any other day she would've thought was demeaning and pulled away. But today, she let herself feel happy.

They had won. She let a sigh of relief escape her lips that she didn't know she had been holding onto. A weight was lifted off her shoulders—one that had been resting there for six months.

Because today, she saved a life and that made everything worth it.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline rubbed her eyes and yawned as the quietness of the elevator surrounded her. Surprisingly enough, the team had landed in Virginia at a reasonable hour from Palm Beach. Typically, she would get home at four in the morning and crash until she had to wake up for work again. But tonight, it was only eight.

Once she put up her things at her desk, she figured she'd just check to see if she had paperwork before heading home and ordering in a pizza. Caroline hadn't realized how hungry she was until she had boarded the jet and smelled the fresh pot of coffee Reid had been making.

The sleek elevator doors slid open and before Caroline could step out, she saw Hotch's wife standing in front of the glass doors of the BAU, peering inside the glass.

"Haley?" Caroline said slowly.

The woman turned around. The first thing Caroline noticed was her very pregnant belly protruding out of her brown overcoat. She was dressed casually underneath the flowing coat—a black maternity shirt and a pair of jeans. Haley had pulled her long blonde hair up in a ponytail and her brown eyes glittered when she saw her.

Haley beamed at Caroline as she stepped off the elevator and gave her a hug. It was hard to hug the woman because of her large stomach, but she carefully avoided her stomach and squeezed the smaller woman's shoulders.

"What are you doing here, Haley?" Caroline asked, concerned. "You're eight months pregnant and the doctor said you needed bed rest."

Hotch's wife waved her hand dismissively. "I feel fine, don't you worry about me. I just came by to say I love the baby onesies you ordered. They're wonderful!"

She feigned her confusion. "What? No, that was Hotch."

Haley rolled her eyes. "Sweetheart, I love my husband and I love you. But after six years, I like to think I know you pretty well. You and I both know he wouldn't know where to begin when it comes to shopping."

Caroline chuckled nervously and bit her lip. "Yeah, I guess so. You're not mad, are you?"

"Are you kidding?" She said, smiling, "I hoped he would ask you to do it!"

The two laughed. Caroline let out a relieved sigh. She didn't need Hotch thinking that she had ratted him out, especially not after last time.

Last time, well, Hotch proved that not only could he hold a grudge but he could also exact revenge by providing her with lots and lots of paperwork.

As they were laughing, the elevator dinged and the doors slid open to reveal Hotch. The moment he saw his wife and Caroline, he risked a small smile.

"Speak of the devil," Haley teased as he approached.

He leaned down and gave his wife a quick kiss before turning to the girls. "So what kind of trouble have you two done now?"

"Trouble? Me?" Caroline smiled innocently. "No."

Hotch rolled his eyes at her as Haley laughed.

"Actually, I was just inviting Care for dinner," she lied, winking at the blonde, "Right?"

She nodded, smiling. "Right."

Hotch's eyes alternated between the two blondes, both as thick as thieves. He sighed, resigned.

"Great!" Haley turned to Caroline, "Spaghetti good with you?"

She blinked at the pregnant woman. She hadn't thought she was serious. "What?"

"I fixing spaghetti for dinner," Haley said to her, "And you're coming. I hardly get to see you anymore. If you won't come for me, do it for your godson." She patted her swollen stomach for emphasis.

Caroline glanced up at Hotch and he gave her a look that said if she said no, he'd drag her to their house where she wanted it or not. She smiled at the couple.

"Of course I'll come. I can't resist a home-cooked meal."

Haley grinned, pleased. As she turned to leave, Caroline stopped her.

"Actually, can I have a moment with Hotch for a second?" She asked Haley as sweetly as she could. "I promise it won't be long, then we'll leave."

Hotch's wife nodded, still smiling, and waddled over to the elevators to wait for them. When she was out of ear-shot, Caroline turned to Hotch. His eyebrows were raised in curiosity, waiting for what she had to say.

"I, uh, just wanted to say, um..." She rubbed the back of her neck as she spoke, staring down at her shoes. "I just wanted to say thanks for saving me back at the storage unit. I acted inappropriately before and I shouldn't have questioned you."

"Are you...apologizing to me?" Hotch's voice was laced with shock.

Her head whipped up and she frowned at him, her brows drawn together. "No! I mean, yes..." She paused as she examined his face. "Why do you seem so surprised? Am I that awful?"

He shook his head, the barest hint of a smile on his face.

"I'm not surprised, at least not in the way you think," He sighed, "You were right. I have been...unfair to you. I haven't been using your talents to their full potential. But it's not because I don't trust you or don't think you can handle yourself, it's just that I..." He trailed off, taking a breath. He changed the subject. "I just want to assure you that will never happen again."

"Wait," she said, her lips pulling up in a smile, "That's not what you were going to say."

"Yes, it was."

"No, it wasn't." She began to laugh. "You were going to say you care! You actually care about me!"

His face was emotionless, unreadable. "I care about everyone on the team."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

Deep down, she felt her heart pull. It wasn't like she ever thought Hotch didn't care, but she just never knew how much. When she was sixteen, she constantly wondered why a complete and total stranger would ever help her, especially considering how hard she made it.

After her parents' deaths, she was volatile, a loose cannon. She was always so angry and guarded. She used to run away all the time, sneaking past whatever FBI protection detail Hotch had assigned to her during that year after her parents' and brother's death. But he'd always find her, even when she'd taken a plane to New York, thinking if she could just get away, everything would be better. And each time he'd convince her to come home, that she couldn't give up.

Haley and Hotch helped her Aunt Guinevere convince Caroline to take the M.I.T scholarship, Hotch trained her for the FBI Academy and helped her transfer into the BAU (with Gideon's help). Without either of them, there was no way she could've become what she was today. And she didn't thank them enough for it.

She would never admit it, mainly because she was too embarrassed and scared of what they would say, but she had always seen Hotch and Haley as a father and a mother figure.

Caroline knew how that would seem if she would profile herself. She had lost her parents at a young age. Abandoned and terrified, she made an emotional connection to the people who helped her in a vain attempt to replace what she had lost. She had just been a scared teenage girl who missed her parents.

Except she couldn't shake it. After everything, behind all the facts and profiles, all that was left was her feelings and she couldn't shake them. She truly would do anything for them.

But she had never, not in the six years she had known Hotch, thought that he saw her as a daughter. She smiled at the thought.

Hotch stared at Caroline, completely silent as he deliberated what to say next.

"Haley would've killed me."

She blinked. "What?"

"Haley would've killed me if I let something happened to you," he admitted.

She smiled. "Okay."

"I'm being serious."

"I know."

Caroline turned but paused. After a second, she glanced back at Hotch.

"I care about you, too," she told him earnestly. He stopped, his face completely blank.

Then he smiled. An actual, honest-to-God smile that she rarely ever saw. She felt a sense of belonging as she smiled back.

"Now," she said to him, "are you coming or not?"

Then, as the sun slowly set back into the sky, Caroline left Quantico with Haley's arms wrapped around her shoulders and Hotch not far behind them, allowing himself to smile as the two girls laughed.


	12. See Me, Feel Me

**"** _Don't forget that I cannot see myself -- that my role is limited to being the one who looks in the mirror._ **"**

**— _Jacques Rigaut_**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**"HEY CARE, WAIT UP!"** She heard Reid's voice call from behind her as she was walking into the BAU. She stopped and spun around on her heels to face the doctor, a huge smile plastered on her face.

"Happy birthday!" She cheered in a sing-song voice as he walked over to her, pumping one fist in the air enthusiastically.

He blushed and tucked a piece of long brown hair behind his ear nervously. "You remembered?"

"Of course I remembered! What kind of friend would I be if I didn't?" She pulled out out her purse and began digging inside before producing a small rectangular white box with a blue ribbon tied around it. She held the present out to him. "I got this for you."

He stopped and stared at the box, looking more confused than happy. "Care, you didn't have to—"

"I'm offended you would even think that I wouldn't get you a present on your 24th birthday," she teased him, elbowing his side gently. She placed the present in his hands and stared at him, waiting for him to look at what was inside. "Well? Open it!"

He gave her a small smile as he carefully tugged at the loosely-tied blue ribbon. It fell off easily and he balled it up in one hand as he lifted the lid off the box. He peeked inside as his mouth dropped open, awestruck.

" _No way_ ," he murmured, his eyes wide, "How did you know?"

She grinned. "So you like it?"

"Like it?" He exclaimed, "I love it!"

He balanced the white box in one hand as he reached inside and pulled out the scarf she had gotten him. She had searched everywhere—and when she said everywhere, she meant everywhere. Somewhere in between the mall and the small thrift store where she had found the scarf, Caroline had stumbled into an S&M shop. That had been less than pleasant, but, in a strange, weird way, vastly interesting.

Spencer gawked at the scarf, at loss for words. It was, without a doubt, 100% Reid.

He held the dark purple scarf gently in his hands, like it was fragile. Etched around the borders were yellow and blue designs, all tightly knitted together. The person she bought it from told her that the designs were actually a representation of the Mayans "secret library" or something along those lines. It was supposedly a philosophical and maddeningly elusive challenge to figure out the truth of the Mayan library. But she knew if anybody could appreciate and figure out the mystery, it would be Reid.

He had been complaining for a while now that he needed a new scarf, since he lost his last one on a case in Cincinnati, but never had the time to go shopping for a new one. She figured she'd kill two birds with one stone—a birthday present and practicality.

Reid looked over at her and grinned, his face lighting up with delight. Her heart fluttered at his lopsided grin.

He leaned forward and embraced Caroline with his free hand. She froze, completely taken aback.

Spencer Reid didn't hug people. It had taken Caroline months just to get him to shake her hand. He was a major germaphobe, an adamant one at that. The fact that he was so close, so warm shocked her.

But then the shock wore off. She wrapped her hands around his thin body, her hands resting gently behind his back. Since he towered over her, her face was directly at his armpit. Her nose brushed against the fabric of his checkered shirt accidentally and she got a waft of coffee. She smiled—he always smelled like coffee.

But she liked it. Caroline realized she wouldn't mind staying like this, standing his in Reid's arms, for a long time, even in the middle of the BAU.

When they finally pulled away, both of the profilers were blushing profusely.

"T—Thank you," Spencer stammered, scratching the back of his head, "I love my present. I really do."

Caroline smiled. "Good. I'm glad."

He gently laid the scarf back in the box and placed the lid back on before gesturing towards the glass doors, "Shall we?"

She nodded as she followed him through the BAU. He held the door open for her and as she stepped through, she returned the favor with a polite smile.

The two profilers stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the group of people converged around Reid's desk.

Morgan spotted Reid first. He flashed a grin at him. "Hey, look, it's the birthday boy!"

Derek moved his muscled body out of the way to reveal JJ and Elle, holding a large birthday cake. It was chocolate frosting and chocolate cake—his favorite. 24 wax candles outlined the edge, all lit and dancing with a small yellow flame. On top of the cake, written in thin, yellow icing, was " _Happy Birthday, Reid_!"

Caroline smiled at them. They had done everything perfectly, beyond what she had asked.

"Oh, wow!" Reid said, staring at their friends in surprise. "You guys didn't have to do this!"

"No, but Caroline forced us," Derek told him, laughing as JJ reached over and whacked him in the arm.

"That's not true, don't listen to him, Spence," JJ said, after throwing Derek a sour look.

Reid looked back at Caroline. "You planned this?"

She shrugged innocently. "Maybe."

Before he could say anything else, Caroline began to lead Reid to his desk. He went willingly, beaming at all his friends, as she sat him down in his chair. Elle and JJ set the cake down in front of him, both of the girls laughing lightheartedly.

Caroline glanced back at Hotch and Gideon, who were hanging out behind the group, watching in amusement. She stuck out her hand to Hotch and wiggled her fingers.

"The hat, please?" She asked sweetly, "And Hotch, can you please smile? It's a party."

Hotch cracked a small, tight-lipped smile, more of a joke than anything else, as he reached forward and handed her the large blue-and-white birthday hat. Cass, her five-year-old sister, had picked it out the day before at the store. It was ridiculously large and decorated with fake multi-colored plush candles on top, making the hat look like a pastry.

She flashed him a stunning smile. "Thank you."

Gideon and Hotch both chuckled as Caroline settled the hat on Reid's head. He stared down at the lit candles, still smiling.

"Make a wish," JJ smiled at him, leaning back against the desk.

Reid leaned forward and began to blow gently on the candles. Each time a flame went out, it immediately flickered back on. He frowned at the cake, confused.

"Come on, man!" Derek chuckled, patting him on the back, "Blow, baby! Blow!"

"I thought you were full of hot air, Reid!" Elle teased as he blew harder against the candles. "Come on!"

After his third attempt at trying to blow out the candles, JJ finally spoke up.

"They're trick candles, Spence. Ok?" She gestured to the still-lit candles. "They're gonna come back on every time."

Caroline watched her friends laugh and joke in amusement. Reid gave one last good blow to the candles but they still popped back on. Morgan tugged at the rim of Reid's colorful birthday hat.

"Oh, look, mommy to the rescue," Derek mocked teasingly.

"Mommy?" He scoffed as Elle and Caroline began to take the candles off the cake, finally getting them to stop burning.

"Ignore him," JJ said to Reid, smiling lightly.

As Caroline trashed the last of the candles, Derek patted Spencer's back encouragingly. "Hey, does this finally mean your legal?"

Reid rolled his eyes as JJ began to cut the cake.

"Aw, you blew wax on the cake, man!" Derek complained as he dipped a finger in the chocolate icing. Caroline smacked his hand away.

"It's Spencer's birthday," she chided her co-worker, "He gets the first taste. Were you raised in a barn?"

He winked at her, popping his finger into his mouth and licked it clean. "Chicago. But nice try, Care."

She rolled her eyes as JJ cut the first slice and set it on the desk in front of Reid.

"Happy birthday, Spence!" She exclaimed as she handed it to him. He smiled.

"Care, why don't you feed it to him?" Derek said and Caroline laughed in response while Reid blushed furiously. JJ handed her a piece of chocolate cake as she distributed the dessert and Caroline thanked her before taking a small bite.

She almost moaned with delight. It wasn't the best cake in the world, but it had been so long since she has had any chocolate, it tasted heavenly.

Before she could take another bite, Hotch cleared his throat and the whole team froze, glancing back at him and Gideon. She could tell by the look on his face that they had another case. Caroline sighed as she tossed her cake in the trash. She wouldn't be needing that anymore.

"Sorry, guys. Party's over," Hotch told them, holding up a new file, "We have a case."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Once everyone had assembled in the conference room, Hotch and JJ began handing out the case files. Caroline picked her's up and began leafing through the papers and photos, scanning them briefly.

"We're going to San Diego," said Hotch as everyone began to examine their files.

"Not for the surfing, huh?" Derek muttered.

"They're calling him The Tommy Killer," JJ stated firmly, "6 women were raped and murdered in their homes in the last 3 weeks."

Caroline paused, the case file trembling in her hands. She could feel her stomach began to knot, pulling her insides like elastic.

"6 in 3 weeks?" Elle asked incredulously. "That's a short fuse."

"And getting shorter," Hotch frowned at the file as he read it, "The first 2 were 8 days apart, the next 4 in 2 weeks."

"Rapid escalation," Reid noted before turning Hotch, "Do you think he's regressing to a psychopathic frenzy?"

The unit leader shook his head. "No, he's too controlled for that."

She didn't say a word. Her hand rested on a crime scene photo on one of the victims—the latest one. The killer had left the woman's eyes wide open, her sea green eyes staring back at Caroline in fear. She swallowed.

That could've been me, she thought to herself as her stomach churned in anxiety. The poor woman must've been terrified—no, beyond terrified. Petrified. She was most like so scared, so defenseless that she just couldn't move, no matter how hard she tried.

Fear began seizing Caroline's body as her mind started to remember what happened to her six years ago.

_The man's bloodied hands began to roam on her body, smearing the dark red blood of her father on her porcelain skin. His stiflingly hot breath washed over her face as he pinned her arms and legs down, straddling her. His lips pressed against her neck, kissing her throat so gently it could've been a lover's kiss, but she knew it was anything but._

_Fear consumed her, wracking her entire body. Her mind was screaming at her, telling her to run, but she was trapped. She squirmed underneath him, trying to fight her way free, but he was too strong, too close. He liked it when she struggled. He flashed her a wolffish grin with rows of decaying yellow teeth—or maybe they were pearly white, like he had work done. She couldn't remember, her mind too clouded in complete and utter fear to think. To remember._

_Everything was happening too fast. He was too fast._

_He leaned down and began unbuckling his belt. She opened her mouth to scream for help, like Chris or her recently deceased father could actually help her, but his hand clamped down over her mouth. She moved to smack him away, now that her hands were free, but she felt resistance. She craned her head and saw that thick rope knotted to her wrists, tying her to the bedposts. She tugged at the rope, desperate to be free._

_When had that happened?_

_Suddenly, the man had a knife in his hands. Her eyes met his—pleadingly. His eyes stared back at her—empty, soulless, black, a void of oblivion and destruction. Her destruction._

_"Try to scream one more time," he hissed in her ear, pressing the knife coated with her father's blood on it to her throat threateningly, "or I'll assure that one of your siblings receives the same fate as your father."_

_She swallowed back the bile rising up in her throat. No, not her family. She had just lost Dad, she couldn't lose them too._

_Suddenly, he was on top of her, his bare body pressing against hers. She shuddered as he ran his wet tongue from her neck to her breasts and then her stomach. He paused._

_No, no, no, no._

_She whimpered as he spread her legs, forcing them apart. She went numb._

_Then all she could hear, all she could feel, was the sound of him laughing at her while he hurt her, over and over and over and over and over..._

Caroline felt someone rest a hand on her shoulder and she jumped, her mind snapping out of the memory. Her head whipped around and she saw Gideon staring at her with solemn eyes. His eyes were earnest, the clear concern on his face was evident. He knew.

Caroline looked away, ashamed, and shrugged off his hand. She was fine.

Or at least, she would be. Eventually.

Her gaze shifted towards Hotch, desperate to think of something else, anything else.

"Why call him The Tommy Killer?" She asked her boss, her voice shaking slightly. If Hotch noticed anything, he didn't say.

"You know the rock opera." She nodded. "Well, this unsub glued his victims' eyes wide open."

Caroline slowly glanced down at the photo in her hand. At the corner of her eyes was a small ball of glue. She felt her heart drop to her stomach.

"He wants them to see him," She murmured as her fingertips caressed the picture woman's lifeless face, as that simple motion could soothe the dead.

"And feel him," Gideon added.

Caroline sat back in her chair and closed her eyes, knowing she would never get the image of the woman's eyes out of her mind.

She felt the anger begin to boil in her stomach. Her teeth clenched.

She wanted this son of a bitch and she wanted him now.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"Brenda Samms was found yesterday by her children when they got home from school," Hotch told the team as they all sat on the plane, a straight flight course to Sam Diego. "She had been strangled with a thin ligature, possibly a wire."

"No weapon at the scene," Elle said as she flipped through crime scene photos.

"Residue on the wrist and mouth indicate that duct tape was used and then removed," Reid added, "Also not found at the scene."

"Brought it with him, took it with him," Caroline murmured, focusing on her sketch in front of her. The whole flight she had been doodling eyes on the yellow notebook paper, trying to get the image of Brenda Samms' glued-open eyes out her head. The roughly sketched eyes stared back at her tauntingly. She marked through the eyes she was currently working on and continued with a new one.

"He also started leaving messages at the fourth scene. It was on the mirrors," Hotch paused before he began to read, "' _Fair lady, throw those costly robes aside. No longer may you glory in your pride. Take leave of all your carnal, vain delight_ —'"

"' _I've come to summon you away this night_ '," Reid finished for him. Everyone looked over at the boy curiously. "It's a ballad from the late 1600s. A dialogue betwixt death and a lady."

A small, knowing smile appeared on Caroline's face. If anyone would know that, it would be Reid.

"A 17th-century ballad?" Elle asked him, sarcasm almost dripping off her voice.

"Yeah, essentially, a woman begging death to live."

"What kind of person knows this ballad?" JJ questioned from the back of the plane, frowning in thought. "A literature professor maybe?"

"Anyone with an internet connection, actually," Spencer replied, chuckling awkwardly as JJ looked at him. "You should see what comes up when you type the word 'Death' into a search engine."

Derek Morgan laughed. "Reid, no wonder you can't get a date."

The younger profiler didn't say anything, but the look on his face showed he was mortified. Caroline resisted the urge to jump across her seat and tackle Derek.

"Reid, you stay on the messages. See if there's a deeper meaning," Gideon told him, ignoring Morgan's comment.

Derek sighed as he looked at the photos of Brenda's house. "Well, it definitely looks like he ransacked the crime scene pretty well." He presented a photo showing a pile of broken jewelry, silverware, and china in the middle of the floor. "A lot of damage, but nothing was taken."

Caroline paused as she finished the rough outline of her eye sketches. The several eyes dotted around the paper stared up at her, unblinking. She tapped the end of her pencil against the paper as she thought.

"The eyes are the signature," she said slowly as she stared at the drawings. "The behavior that isn't necessary for the murder, but necessary for the emotional release. That's what he's there for."

"There used to be a widely held belief that the eyes record a snapshot of the last thing a person sees before they die," Reid said.

"Yeah, that's right," Derek agreed. "People used to write poems talking to death."

"Ballads," Spencer corrected him. He rolled his eyes.

"Whatever."

Caroline took a deep breath. "Do you think they'll ever run out of new things to do their victims?"

The plane went silent. She could feel everyone's eyes on her—Hotch and Gideon more concerned than confused. She didn't look up. She couldn't see their eyes without seeing the victims' eyes.

"Well, finding new ways to hurt each other is what we're good at," Gideon replied after a long moment.

She didn't say anything back. The conversation in the plane ceased to silence.

She stared down at her drawing of eyes. Finally tired of seeing them, she ripped out the notebook page and balled it up in her fist before shoving it deep down in her bag.

Gideon was right. The only thing people are ever good for was hurting each other.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

The moment the BAU landed, they were immediately taken to the task force headquarters in the San Diego Police Department. Once they had arrived, the team separated to the evidence boards dotted along the wide room, oblivious to the short, stocky man standing in front of them with an incredulous look on his face.

"Captain Griffith, task force commander," the man said as he shook Hotch's hand, then Caroline's.

"Sorry, we all get tunnel vision," Hotch told him before introducing them, "I'm Special Agent Hotchner. This is Special Agent Lucas."

"I appreciate you coming out," the captain told them sincerely, rubbing his hand through his short, curly black hair.

"Thanks, hope we can help."

After introducing themselves, Caroline and Hotch sat their things at a nearby desk. She looked around at her teammates, all of them preoccupied. Elle was speaking with a couple of detectives working on the case while Derek and Gideon were heading out of the station to investigate the last crime scene—it was still taped off because the husband refused to go back inside. He probably never will.

Reid and JJ were standing near the board with all the poem pieces given to them by the killer. Caroline watched as he said something and JJ laughed. A sharp pang erupted in her chest.

She could tell Reid liked JJ—who couldn't? She was wonderful: smart, pretty, nice. She was one of Caroline's closest friends on the team, and yet, as hard as she tried, she couldn't bring herself to not feel angry at her friend. She knew it was irrational—JJ has done absolutely nothing wrong—but it was there, stirring inside her when she saw the two agents talking. It wasn't jealousy, she knew that. She didn't have a right to be jealous. He wasn't hers and she wasn't his.

But she felt something. She didn't know how to explain it or what to call it but it was deep inside her, almost like an open wound.

She glanced away from the pair and decided to distract herself with work. She could do that.

Captain Griffith walked up to her and Hotch with a grim look on his face. Caroline reached for her badge resting on the desk in front of her. She had a feeling she was going to need it.

"There's been an attempted rape 6 blocks from here," the captain told them.

"Attempt?" Hotch asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, the husband interrupted and the attacker got away. The couple called it in immediately."

Hotch turned to Caroline. "You up for checking it out?"

She paused. She heard JJ and Reid's laughter from behind her and her heart sunk to her stomach.

"Definitely."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

When Hotch and Caroline arrived on the scene, the house was swarming with police officers. They were upstairs, in the kitchen, in the dining room, and in the living room. The small neighborhood home was beginning to feel like a hive to her—the officers like little bees buzzing around. At least, that was how she felt six years ago.

Now, it was a normal crime scene, if a crime scene could be considered normal.

"All things considering," Hotch said as they passed through the kitchen, "she's a lucky woman."

Caroline's eyes roamed around the kitchen. On the marble countertops were a bowl of lettuce, a chopping board with onions setting atop it, and some freshly picked oranges from the garden she had seen when she first arrived. She could pinpoint the initial attack, right where the victim was probably setting down the basket of oranges. The basket had been overturned and the fruit was laying all around the floor, scattered.

"You know what, she probably doesn't feel so lucky right now," she murmured as she walked into the living room where the victim and her husband were being interviewed.

Mr. and Mrs. Gordon sat on the small couch as six police officers, plus Captain Griffith, surrounded them. The husband was a tall man with white hair. He wore a suit and tie and his hand was gripping onto his wife's hand tightly as he spoke to the police. His wife never said a word, only her big, glistening blue eyes bounced from person to person. They looked so empty.

Caroline's felt a surge of empathy. She understood what Mrs. Gordon was feeling—more than anyone in the room could ever understand.

"You're absolutely sure about that, Mr. Gordon?" Captain Griffith questioned the older man.

The man nodded. "He was black and six feet tall." Caroline and Hotch shared a confused look. The unsub was black now? "I watched him run out that back door." Mr. Gordon gestured towards the two sliding glass doors that were in the corner of the room.

Captain Griffith stood up and offered his condolences to the family before heading over to the two FBI agents standing in the doorway. He looked at them and Caroline could tell he was pacified with Mr. Gordon's answer.

"Inter-racial serial sex crimes are rare," Hotch told the captain quietly, keeping his voice low, as he approached them.

The captain frowned. "Are they impossible?"

"No."

"Then what's your point?"

Caroline glanced over the police captain's shoulder as they spoke, tuning out the conversation. Mrs. Gordon's eyes were locked on her, the fear in them overwhelming.

"I'm going to go talk to her," Caroline spoke up, her eyes never leaving Mrs. Gordon's.

Captain Griffith looked at her, clearly taken aback. "May I ask why?"

"Because she's surrounded by men."

Caroline felt their eyes on her as she walked towards Mrs. Gordon. She shook it off and kept walking.

"Mrs. Gordon?" Her voice was soft, calming. The older woman and her husband glanced up at the young profiler. "I'm Caroline. Would you like to go outside?"

Mrs. Gordon bit her lip, unsure.

"It's all right," she promised her. "We're just going to go somewhere quiet."

After a moment of deliberation and an assuring pat on the back from her husband, Mrs. Gordon rose from her spot on the couch and followed Caroline outside to the orange farm in her backyard. The women sat down in the two wicker chairs facing the small garden of orange trees Mrs. Gordon kept well-taken care of.

The first thing the older woman said to Caroline when they got outside was, "I really don't know that much about him."

Mrs. Gordon's voice sounded mousy and shaky. The poor thing was still terrified.

Crickets chirped around them as Caroline leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. A slight breeze blew through the yard, sweeping her blonde hair across her shoulders.

"You don't have to," she assured to the woman. "Just take a little time to collect your thoughts, to just sit here, breathe. If you need me, I'll be right behind the doorway."

Mrs. Gordon sucked in a small breath and sighed, her shoulders drooping. "You don't want to ask me questions?"

Caroline leaned forward and patted her hand soothingly. It was warm and surprisingly soft—like a grandmother's hand. She was someone's grandmother, and she had been treated so inhumanly ever since some man laid a hand on her. The police pry and pry and pry, and she understood it. She was an FBI agent, for Christ's sake.

But it wasn't fair to demand answers out of Mrs. Gordon. Caroline wished someone would've done the same for her six years ago.

"Not until you're ready."

Before Caroline could stand up, Mrs. Gordon reached out and wrapped her hand to her wrist, causing her to freeze halfway.

"I didn't even know he was in the house," the older woman whispered to her, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Is that common?"

She gave her a small, sympathetic smile as she slowly sat back down in her cushioned wicker chair. "Very."

It had happened to Caroline. Her rapist had burst through her front door, restrained her father and brother and locked the door before she had known something was wrong.

It happened to women every day. It was a power move—taking away the feeling of safety. And it wasn't right.

Mrs. Gordon took a shaky breath, balling her hands up into fists in front of her. They shook like she couldn't control herself.

"He slapped me from behind," the woman recounted to her as she recalled the attack. "He pulled me down on the floor. I tried to scratch him and bite him, but he was so strong. And then my husband came home from work. He screamed, and the man ran out the door."

"Earlier your husband said it was a black man," Caroline said, resting her hands in her lap. "Is this true?"

"Oh, Bill was sure of it, but I...I only remember his eyes," Mrs. Gordon admitted. She leaned forward, towards Caroline, her eyes wide and panicked. "When we were fighting, I kept staring him right in the eyes. I remember thinking, ' _If he's gonna kill me, then he's going to have to look at me while he does_ '."

Mrs. Gordon sniffled, a tear rolling out of the corner of her eyes and down her face. "And he just kept staring back at me through the ski mask."

Caroline paused. "A ski mask?"

Mrs. Gordon nodded as she began to cry, covering her mouth with her hand. "Yeah."

"It's all right," Caroline told the woman, taking both of her hands in hers, "You did well."

The woman nodded, straightening her back. Mrs. Gordon looked proud of herself, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

Caroline smiled back at the woman as the gears in her mind began to turn. A ski mask? Why would a rapist who planned to rape and murder someone wear a mask? As she comforted the woman, she came to a relieving, and yet, disheartening conclusion.

Whoever Mrs. Gordon's attacker was, he wasn't The Tommy Killer.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Once they had left the Gordon residence, Caroline and Hotch had made about five steps into the bustling police station before Reid, Gideon and Morgan converged on them, their profiler minds working overtime. Reid clutched a piece of paper in his hand as he walked over to her, his eyes alight with curiosity and excitement. He always did love a good challenge.

"The verses," Spencer announced, holding up the piece of paper.

"Found something?" Gideon asked him.

"Uh, not an answer, but a question. I found the full text," the genius glanced down at the paper, his eyes traveling along the paper with lightning-fast speed as he examined the words. "He's pretty much following the ballad to a T, at least the death side of the conversation."

Caroline sensed something that Spencer wasn't saying. She raised her eyebrows. "But?"

"Why didn't he leave them at the first three murders?" He wondered, looking around the small group of profilers for answers. "I mean, this ballad is 10 verses long just on the death side—he's got plenty to work with. But if it's not part of his signature, if it isn't something that he has to do for an emotional reason, then, I mean, why start?"

A small smile spread across Gideon's face. Caroline knew something had clicked inside his mind because her mentor very rarely ever smiled.

He turned to JJ, who was sitting at a nearby desk with one of the office phones in hand, trying to quell media coverage. "JJ, find out when the press ran the first story on this unsub."

The press liaison looked up, confused. "When?"

"After which victim."

She nodded and began pressing buttons on the phone. "Yeah, you got it."

"What're you thinking?" Morgan asked Gideon, confusion all over his face.

"He wasn't getting enough attention," Gideon replied.

"The police departments sometimes don't even realize they're looking at a pattern," Reid admitted.

Caroline nodded. "Yeah, until somebody tells them."

JJ was nodding as she turned around to face the profilers. The phone was pinched between her ear and her shoulder, writing down what was being said to her through the phone.

"The first story ran the morning after the fourth victim was found," said JJ.

Derek reached over and grabbed one of the case files from JJ's desk. He flipped through a couple of pages before he stopped, finding what he was searching for. "The increased patrols didn't begin until after the fourth victim, either."

"The police didn't realize what was happening," Gideon explained to them, "The Tommy Killer writes his verse. And then everyone knows that he was there."

Hotch had been nodding the whole time during the conversation, listening intently. Gideon turned to him once he finished explaining.

"Did you and Caroline find out anything at the Gordon house?" He asked Hotch.

"The offender in this new attempt is a black male," replied Hotch, his face a cool mask.

"A black male?" Derek asked incredulously. "Cross racial—that doesn't happen."

"What about Herbert Mullin?" Reid countered. "He killed 14 different people of completely varying ages, races, and creeds."

"But there was no sexual component to his crimes," Caroline reminded her friend. "And this attacker wore a ski mask. Why wear a ski mask when you plan to murder?"

Gideon's eyes locked onto the evidence board. Ideas were mixing up in his brain, she could tell.

"Tell them we're ready," he said.

"For our profile?" Derek asked him.

"No," Gideon responded after a moment's pause. "We're gonna make Tommy contact us."


	13. Plain Sight

**"** _Birds sing after a storm. Why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?_ **"**

**— _Rose Kennedy_**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**"THE UNSUB BROUGHT HIS** weapons with him—tape, glue, wire," Gideon said to the room full of police officers. As he spoke, they all began jotting down notes from the profile. "He did not leave them at the scene. He took them when he left. He has a kind of killing kit that he carries."

Hotch crossed his arms in front of him and surveyed the room as he spoke, "Organized killers usually have a skilled job, likely technology related, which may involve use of the hands."

"The crime scenes are far enough apart that he needs a vehicle," he continued, "This will be well kept, obsessively clean, as will his home. He's diurnal, the attacks occurred during the day, so the vehicle may be related to his work, possibly a company car or truck."

Derek, who had been standing silently beside Caroline, spoke up. "We believe he watches his victims for a time, learns the rhythms of the home, and knows his time frame. You're not gonna catch him accidentally."

Caroline watched the police bob their heads up and down in agreement. Their focused eyes were all focused on the profilers standing in the front of the station. It was almost unnerving to have so many eyes trained on her at once—especially since the image of the victim's glued-open eyes were fresh on her mind.

She took an involuntary step back and her back bumped into one of the evidence boards, jostling it a little. Derek cast a glance at her, his eyes questioning. She shook her head nonchalantly, playing it off. She didn't want him to know that she had gotten freaked out—he would run straight to Gideon and tell him.

Then Gideon and Hotch really would have a reason to kick her off the case. She knew that they thought this case hit too close to home for her—Gideon had even told her as much on before they boarded the plane in a vain attempt to get her to stay home. She had refused to stay back.

There was no way she was letting this son of a bitch off that easy.

"He destroys symbols of wealth in the victims' homes," said Gideon, looking back at the crime scene photos directly behind him. All the jewelry and wrecked expensive china that Tommy had broken in such a violent rage glared out at Caroline. "He harbors envy of and hatred toward people of a higher social class. He feels invisible around them."

Reid cleared his throat from behind Derek. He had been almost hiding behind the muscular profiler, avoiding everyone's stares. She was surprised he was even speaking.

"Class is the theme of the poem which he left at various crime scenes," Reid told the police officers, his voice low. "At one point in the poem, the woman attempts to bribe death, but he doesn't accept it. He says this is the one moment when riches mean nothing. When death comes, the poor and the rich are exactly alike."

"So he's poor?" Captain Griffith asked from his seat in the center of the room.

"Probably middle-class," Hotch answered. "A decidedly lower-class person would stick out in a highly patrolled neighborhood. This guy appears to belong there. He blends in."

A tall, dark-skinned detective in the back raised his hand and pointed at the picture of Brenda Samms' eyes on the evidence board. "Why does he glue the eyes open?"

Hotch glanced over at Caroline and she stepped up. This was her job, she reminded herself. She can handle this.

"The unsub is an exploitative rapist," she explained, keeping her voice confident and sure. "Most rape victims close their eyes during that attack, turn their heads. For some rapists, this ruins the fantasy." She could feel a tingle run up her spine. A fantasy...her rapist had called it a fairytale like he had been destined to find her. _No_ , she thought to herself, _Focus_! "For this type of rapist, the goal is more related to the victim watching him than the act itself."

"The verses, the staging, the aggressive language, _'I am Death'_ , this is a guy who, while being in control at the crime scene, almost certainly feels inadequate in the rest of his life," Hotch remarked.

"That's why he couldn't wait for you to figure out what he'd done," Gideon explained to the officers, "why he needed to make sure all his crimes were counted. His victims represent whatever it is that's controlling him, and he wants that control back. He is under the thumb of a powerful woman who frightens him."

"And a final point." He paused, interlacing his fingers. "He is white."

"We have witnesses that identify him as a black male," Captain Griffith objected, his voice hard. She could tell he didn't like what they were saying one bit.

"The attacker was black," Gideon agreed before continuing on, his voice complacent. "But he is not The Tommy Killer."

Before Captain Griffith could disagree or say anything else, Hotch stepped in.

"Mrs. Gordon's husband came home at the same time that he always does," he reasoned with the officers. "The Tommy Killer would've known that."

"And Mrs. Gordon's attacker wore a ski mask," Caroline added. "The unsub knows when he walks into a house, he's going to kill the woman who lives there. If you're not leaving any witnesses, why wear a ski mask?"

"And he wants the victim to see him anyway," Derek interjected. "Your attempted rapist is a garden variety, disorganized young man."

"As the victim's age goes up, generally, the attacker's age goes down," she explained. "Mrs. Gordon is about 60, which puts her rapist at about 20."

"And it takes years to develop the level of calm and sophistication that Tommy displays at a crime scene," Gideon stated, his gaze sweeping over every police officer in the room. "And the rapist is far too young for that."

"Mrs. Gordon told me that there's a young man who delivers groceries to their home," Caroline recalled. "He fits a lot of what we're describing here."

Captain Griffith stood up, the exasperation on his face evident. "Great. So we're back to zero on Tommy."

"Not at all, actually," Hotch told the captain. "May I see Agent Lucas and I see you in your office for a moment?"

The captain looked over at him and Caroline staring them down. Eventually, he signed in resignation and gestured towards his office in the back of the station, where the two profilers followed him inside.

Captain Griffith's office was dim like all the lights had busted. It wasn't very elaborate either, with a small desk in the center of the room and a bookshelf filled with criminal law textbooks and novels—but nothing like Gideon's collection back in Quantico.

The captain marched over and stood behind his desk, his arms crossed expectantly in front of him.

"You have a tip line for the public, correct?" Hotch asked him.

The captain nodded. "Yes."

The Unit Chief looked over at Caroline and nodded at her to continue.

"We have a technician back at Quantico who can tap into your phone system," she told the captain.

Captain Griffith frowned. "He's gonna call us?" The tone in his voice was unsure, skeptical.

"Well, he's gone out of his way to show you how scary he is, and when the 11:00 news leads with the capture of a 6-foot-tall black man in connection with his crimes, he's going to furious," Caroline replied.

"So? What does it matter if Tommy gets pissed?"

"Because he'll be furious enough to call."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline watched with sharp eyes as Derek escorted Mrs. Gordon's attacker through the police station. The young black man kept his head down, avoiding any and all eyes contact. The press must have been extra aggressive tonight.

Elle walked into the station not far behind Derek. She spotted Caroline standing with her arms crossed and she went over to her, her shoulders relaxed.

"He confessed to Mrs. Gordon's attack before we even got to the car," Elle told her.

She nodded. "Thanks, Elle."

JJ approached Caroline, her heels tapping against the floor as she walked.

"This should make the 11:00 news," JJ reported.

"Did they get good footage?"

"Yeah, couldn't miss him."

Caroline nodded as she pulled out her phone and began to dial Garcia's number. "Perfect. JJ, find Hotch and Gideon and tell them everything. I'll check and make sure Garcia is ready with the trap-and-trace."

The press liaison nodded once before she took off. Caroline pressed her phone to her ear as it rang, waiting patiently for the line to pick up.

"Go for Ms. Penelope Garcia," the tech analyst's voice sang through the phone.

"You ready with the trap-and-trace?" She asked.

"Peaches, this is the office of unmitigated superiority. I am always ready," Garcia replied confidently. "With the awesome power I have in this room, all I need is 15 seconds on the phone to nail this skeevy perv."

She raised an eyebrow, unsure. "15 seconds?"

"If that," Garcia declared, her voice light. "Really, Care-bear, the doubt is quite hurtful. Have I ever let you down?"

"No, not ever," Caroline smiled a little as she spoke. "Forgive my unnecessary and ill-mannered skepticism."

"You are forgiven. I will call you the moment I have this profligate's location. _Au-Revoir_ , my love!"

There was a click and the line went dead. Caroline pocketed her phone as she went to sit by her assigned phone. Eventually, the rest of the BAU began to file into their phones, along with some police. Hotch was pacing up and down the aisles between the desks, watching.

They were all waiting.

Reid came over and sat down in the chair beside Caroline, a Rubik cube in his hands. He didn't say a word as his fingers moved and twisted, matching the colored sides adeptly.

She felt the nerves bubble in her chest. Her hands were itching to do something—anything—so they began to pick at the wood desk. She carved her fingernails into the wood, etching in small designs and patterns. She was doing the best she could to try and distract herself, but it wasn't working.

She needed The Tommy Killer to call. He needed to mess up, and then they'd catch him. She could catch him, and his proliferating attacks would stop.

She needed him to call.

"God, I hate waiting like this," Caroline sighed, resting her head in her hands. She began to massage her temples, trying to chase away the headache thumping in the back of her brain.

"Do you think it's weird that I knew that ballad?" Reid asked her, referring to what he had said on the plane.

She lifted her head from her hands slowly and looked over at him. His eyebrows were furrowed; his mouth was mashed into a small, thin line and he didn't look up from his Rubik cube.

"I don't know how it is that you know half the things you know, but I'm glad you do."

His fingers slowed, hovering over the colored puzzle cube. "Do you think it's why I can't get a date?"

Caroline raised her eyebrows. She couldn't tell if she felt confused or just outright shocked by his question. "Have you ever asked anyone out?"

Reid paused as he thought, then he frowned. "No."

"Well, that's why you can't get a date."

She peeked over at him through her blonde hair and their eyes met. Their gazes lingered for longer than was necessary, almost like the one was waiting for what the other had to say. Her heart pounded, thumping so wildly against her rib cage, Caroline thought it was going to burst right through her chest.

She wanted to say something—anything—but she couldn't seem to find the words. Everything she said was laced with some double meaning— _ask me out, don't ask me out_. It felt like there were two halves of her who couldn't agree, neither relenting. Her head said that her crush was just that—a crush. It was irrational and, not to mention, against regulations. She wasn't ready for a relationship, how could she be? She had her family to worry about and Haley and her job, not to mention all the emotional baggage she has.

Her heart told her mind to shut up. All she could focus on was the butterflies flitting around in her stomach and the pink blush creeping up on her pale cheeks.

Then there was just Caroline, who couldn't decide which to listen to.

Eventually, she looked away, her blue eyes focusing on her clasped hands in her lap. For a moment, she wondered why she felt so helpless whenever she was with him. Was it his intelligence that intimidated her? Or was it his complete and utter innocence in the world that shook her to her very core?

He was a 24-year-old genius and he has seen his fair share of demons in his job—their job. But he has never experienced it. He didn't know what it felt like to be the victim. He could go outside his apartment without fearing the word. He didn't see the horrible memories of chopped up bodies and dead little boys and girls that haunts her sleep. He still believed in people. He had yet to experience the worst in this life and that made her feel so incredibly helpless.

There would be nothing she could do to save him when that day comes and it felt like an elephant had sat on her chest, snuffing out her breath.

Then, Derek shot up from his desk in front of Caroline's. He was tense, his back muscles clenched. He whirled around and she saw the office phone he had clutched to his ear, his face just as tense and anxious as his body language.

He had the unsub on the phone.

"Line 6," Morgan announced to the precinct. The station went silent. JJ, who was sitting at another desk at the other end of the room, began dialing Garcia's number on her cell to tell the technical analyst what line to tap. Hotch, Elle, and Gideon shot up from their seats and gathered around Caroline's desk, where she quickly pressed buttons, putting the unsub on speaker.

" _You stupid, incompetent sons of bitches!_ " A wild, taut voice cursed over the phone. The unsub was definitely male and definitely very, very angry. " _I don't make mistakes! I am Death! You hear me? I am Death!_ "

No one said a word as the unsub paused. She heard someone suck in a shaky breath, then the release of air, like he was trying to calm himself. It didn't work.

The unsub's voice was quieter now; he was no longer screaming into the phone. But his voice morphed into something much more dangerous and frightening, like a low guttural sound from a seething animal.

" _You'll see now. Tomorrow. Mark my words, you will see_ ," The Tommy Killer growled, his words echoing as they came out of the small phone speaker. " _And while I'm taking her, I'm gonna be thinking of you!_ "

There was a sound of the phone slamming against the receiver and then the line went dead. Caroline glanced up expectantly at the blonde press liaison once the call ended, talking vigorously to Garcia.

They had to have something on this guy. Anything.

JJ met Caroline's gaze. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, the phone still pressed against her ear. "Garcia says she got nothing."

Derek's head swiveled towards the press liaison, his eyes bewildered. "Nothing?"

"We missed him?" Hotch demanded, the surprise and sharpness of his voice cutting through the room. JJ only nodded, her face regretful.

Caroline turned to Reid as Morgan slammed the phone back down on the receiver aggressively, shaking the desk just from the sheer force. Their eyes met and she swallowed, but the tight lump in her throat still remained.

Spencer's eyes were wide and guilt-ridden. She could tell he was thinking the exact same thing as she was.

They might have just gotten a woman killed.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

The next morning, the BAU and the entire San Diego police department went out into the nice, quiet neighborhood from where the Tommy Killer raped and murdered and began searching for the unsub. The BAU had separated into groups of two, each pair given an undercover car. Reid and Morgan had taken the two-seater red convertible, Hotch and Elle grabbed a black SUV, and Caroline and Gideon had grabbed a small, late-model silver Honda from the garage. They all had parted ways, wishing the others good luck before heading off to their designated blocks.

Caroline glanced over at Gideon sitting patiently in the driver's seat, his hands resting on the black leather steering wheel. During the ride from the station to the upper-class neighborhood and the hour they had been sitting in the humid car, watching, it had been completely silent. Neither Gideon nor Caroline attempted to have a conversation. They couldn't—not when they knew what was at stake.

The Tommy Killer could make a mistake today. He's angry and probably hadn't done the kind of surveillance he'd like. They could either catch him or his volatile state could only enrage him even further to torture the women more.

Caroline stared out the windshield at the Brenda Samms' house. It was a large, mute-colored brick house. It sat in the middle of an intersection, the yard still impeccably kept and maintained. From the car, she could still see the yellow crime scene tape stuck to the front door.

"That's the last place he watched," Gideon murmured, nodding towards Mrs. Samms' house. "That house."

"Morgan said the family hasn't moved back in," she replied, her voice equally as quiet.

He sighed. "Probably never will."

She craned her head and stared up at the grey sky above them. Today was an overcast day, the puffy grey clouds blocking out any sun. It felt dreary, heavy almost, sitting in the car, like a wet towel hanging on a rack.

"It's the eyes," Caroline mused, her eyes scanning the grey sky.

"Hm?"

"It's the eyes, Gideon. There's just something not right about the eyes."

"If you mean what he does to them, then yeah, I agree."

She took a breath and turned her head to face her boss. His calculating eyes stared back at her, and she refrained from shuddering. His eyes, her eyes, the victims' eyes. They all were beginning to look the same.

"No," she whispered, shaking her head. "It's almost a classic move for an exploitative rapist to force a victim to watch."

"But?"

"We're missing something about it."

Gideon didn't say respond. She turned her head and stared out the window again, this time overlooking the concrete street instead of the dreary sky. So far, she's seen two women jogging and an old man walking his dog on the block. Nothing suspicious so far.

"What about what happened to you? Did he force you to watch, Caroline?"

Her blood ran cold. " _Excuse me?_ "

"Did the man who raped you force you to watch?" Gideon asked again, his voice unapologetic. She clenched her teeth together, forcing her mouth shut. "I know he didn't glue your eyes, but he made you keep your eyes open, didn't he? Said if you didn't he'd slit one of your siblings' throats. Is that why you're so concentrated on the eyes? Because you can't get his out of your head?"

Caroline sucked in a breath and raised her gaze to him. His face was stern, unyielding. She could feel herself shifting in her seat, angling her body away from him as if she were shielding herself.

"This is a highly inappropriate conversation to be having, Agent Gideon," Caroline replied icily, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "I suggest we get back to looking for Tommy before he hurts someone else."

"Why?"

"Why?" She snapped at him, her anger beginning to boil over. Her fists curled into tight balls. "Because that's my job— _our job!_ How dare you—you don't have the right to ask me those questions! Why is it so damn important that you feel the need to profile me?"

He stared back at her blankly, seemingly unaffected by her outburst. She wanted to jump out of the car and run. Just run and run and run and not stop. Anything but talk about what happened to her.

"Because I can't remember the last time you've talked about it," Gideon admitted calmly, folding his hands in his lap. "When was it? The day we found you and your family? The coerced therapy session Hotch mandated you to take once you joined the Academy, but managed to effortlessly talk your way out of, perhaps? Or maybe it was the psychological evaluation I gave on you when you first joined the BAU?"

She didn't say anything. She honestly could remember either. She didn't talk about it—ever. It was bad enough the memory plagued her thoughts, her dreams. She couldn't let it affect her speech too.

"Caroline, I know it's hard to think about, much less talk about," Gideon's voice grew softer, surprising her. He had never used that tone of gentleness with her before. "But you need to start talking to someone. You can't let this build up inside you. The longer it festers inside of you, the harder it will be to heal."

Who was she supposed to talk to? Him? Hotch? One of the BAU members? A therapist? No way. No one would understand where she was coming from. They'd try, she knew they would because they were good people, but it wouldn't help. They'd grow to pity her, see her as unable to do her job. She couldn't afford that.

"My life is _none_ of your business."

"Do you still do that thing?" Gideon asked her, ignoring her previous comment. "You know, where you shut it all off? Do you still call it your special skill or have you outgrown that yet?"

She pursed her lips. She could believe he had the audacity to talk about her business. When it came to what happened in Boston with Adrian Bale and Gideon's "depressive episodes", she hadn't pried. She felt a spark of anger at his indifference.

"I take your silence as you do. You, of all people, know how dangerous that can be." When she didn't respond, he continued, his face still a cool mask. "Everything you shove down, everything you hide behind the walls you've built, will come back up. And it will be devastating."

"And you have experience in that subject, I take it?" Her tone was sharp, cold. She could feel the walls she created when she was sixteen starts building up.

Gideon glanced away, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. A blank look registered across his face as if he was remembering something. "Unfortunately, I have had my fair share of devastation as well, Agent Lucas."

She turned her head and stared over at Gideon. Even though he was there physically in the car with her, the far-off look in his grey, tormented eyes told her that he was somewhere else in his mind. And wherever he was, it didn't look pleasant. She immediately felt the guilt rising up in her chest.

She opened her mouth to say something—maybe something comforting or reassuring—but she would never know what she would say. Before she could get a word out, a black-and-white police car rolled up beside the Honda with the windows rolled down. The tan, burly officer inside the cruiser examined them suspiciously, his eyes narrowing at the two agents in the car.

"Can I help you folks with something?" He asked, his tone anything but friendly.

Gideon snapped out of his stupor, blinking a couple of times as he registered the officer's question. He was a little slow about it, but he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his badge. "FBI."

The officer leaned over and inspected the badge. Once he realized they were legit, he apologized with full sincerity before driving off to continue his patrol.

"After the fourth killing, P.D. doubled the patrol in these neighborhoods, then doubled them again after the fifth and sixth," said Gideon as the officer drove off down the street. He looked fine now, back to his calm, observing self. Along with that, he had dropped the conversation they were having earlier, leaving it alone—for now, at least.

"Yet our unsub still watched the houses," Caroline said.

"How could he not have been seen?"

Suddenly, she heard a loud, high pitch chirping through the rolled down windows. She peered through the glass and up on the telephone lines was a small black bird with bright yellow and blue plumage on its chest, singing its morning song. She tilted her head curiously.

"Is that an oriole?" She asked Gideon. He turned his head to look at her and she nodded towards the bird sitting on the cables above them. He examined the bird for a moment.

"No, that's a black-headed grosbeak."

She raised an eyebrow. "Grosbeak?"

Caroline watched as another bird flitted over to its friend. This was looked slightly different from the grosbeak; instead of bright plumage, it had a grey chest with duskier black feathers. The small bird landed delicately on the cable cord, flapping its wings while it began to chirp along with its friend.

"Grosbeak, too. Female." Gideon chuckled and she looked over at him curiously. "Orson Welles said all the birds who belong to the male sec have prettier feathers, 'cause males have got to try to justify their existence. We spend all our time screaming, ' _look at me, look at me_ '."

Suddenly, his phone went off, his ringtone piercing the foggy air. The older profiler dug through both of his pockets before he pulled out his small cell phone. He flipped it open and held the phone to his ear. "Gideon here."

Caroline stared at the birds as her mentor spoke on the phone, almost fascinated by how they stood so still on the telephone cords. She couldn't hear what was being said, she was starting to zone out. She tried to focus back on the phone call, but something Gideon had said struck a chord with her.

"Look at me," Caroline repeated, whispering to herself. " _Look at me._ "

Beside her, Gideon hung up the phone and glanced over at the young blonde, the confusion on his face apparent. "Garcia couldn't get a fix on the call because it was routed through 25 different substations."

"25 substations?" She murmured, her brain trying to think.

Before he could stop her, Caroline opened the door and stepped out into the drowsy morning. She marched down the street with a brisk pace, her heels clicking against the pavement. Not far behind her, she could hear Gideon following her, trying to catch up.

"He wanted them to see him," Caroline told him as they approached Brenda Samms' front door.

"You've already established this, Agent Lucas," Gideon replied. She gestured for her boss to unlock the door and he pressed a small silver house key into her palm. She latched onto the cool metal as she inserted the key into the lock, twisting it to the side. There was a sharp click and she turned the doorknob, swinging the door open.

Caroline ignored the nice, well-furnished house. She only wanted to see one thing.

She wanted to know if she was right.

She made her way up the polished wooden stairs with Gideon close behind her. She turned to the right of the stairs and entered the master bedroom. The CSI team had cleaned up the jewelry and electronics the unsub had broken in the middle of the floor, but there were still leftover fragments of metal and springs from the items embedded into the white carpet. The king-sized bed had been stripped of its sheets, leaving only a bare mattress resting on the mahogany bedpost.

"He's meticulous. Nothing is an accident," she stated as she stared down the somewhat-worn down white mattress. "He vacuumed. Seeing is about domination—his creation. He positioned everything exactly the way he wanted it."

Caroline rested her hands against the mattress. It was soft, comfortable. She began to crawl onto the bed, her knees digging into the soft fabric. She laid down across the bed, pressing the side of her face against the mattress. She was facing the same direction as the victim was, body position and all.

For a moment, Caroline could almost feel like the unsub's hands on her legs, holding her down. She could hear Brenda Samms' screams in her head, pleading not to hurt her. Her terror suffocated her, smothering her with pure, unadulterated fear.

"If the eyes were so they could watch the attack, why are they all facing away from it?" She asked Gideon. "In this position, they couldn't see him during."

Caroline felt Gideon lean over the bed, trying to get on her eye-level to see what she was seeing. Her blue eyes stared out the window she was facing. The only thing she could see was the telephone cables, where the unsub would go and work on after he was through with his victims.

He was a phone technician. The police are looking for someone walking around in broad daylight—who notices a phone guy up on a pole? He can watch for husbands leaving for work, watch for police patrols, know when the neighborhood's quiet.

He knows when he'll have plenty of time, he can even tap into a phone line to make sure someone's home. Routing a call through 25 substations was a cakewalk for him.

Backyard? He's just looking for a pole. Got tape? Of course he does. Wire? He's a repairman.

The unsub was right under their noses the whole time.

Caroline stared out the window, the realization hitting her like an anvil falling from a ledge.

"He wanted them to see him afterward."


	14. Memories

**"** _The healthy man does not torture others. Generally, it is the tortured who turn into torturers._ **"**

**— _Carl Jung_**

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**"OFFICE OF UNFETTER OMNISCENCE** speaking. Penelope Garcia is in," the technical analyst chimed in through the phone pressed against Caroline's ear. "Speak, oh fortunate one."

"Garcia, it's Caroline. Can you get into the phone repair records in San Diego?"

As she talked into the phone, Gideon and she walked swiftly to their parked car outside of Brenda Samms' house. She glanced up at the grey sky, where some rays of sun were starting to peak through the oblique clouds above her. It looked as if the universe knew she was close to catching The Tommy Killer and decided to finally swing her way for once.

"Sunshine...I can run CentCom from here and still participate in simultaneous Tetris tournaments."

She smiled, "Of course you can. I'm looking for repairmen cross-referenced with the murders in San Diego. It could be as much as four or five days prior. See if there are any common name."

"Total cake. Stay on the line."

She tapped her foot impatiently against the concrete as she heard the soft tapping of Garcia's hands running across her keyboard. Her heart was pounding in her chest now, and she couldn't tell if it was because she was nervous or anxious.

There had to be something on the unsub, they didn't have much time left in the morning to save the next victim. Caroline had to save this next victim. She just had to.

Not even a minute later, Garcia came back on the line, sounding more than happy, "Oh, sugarplum, your genius amazes me."

"Garcia, what do you have for me? Something good, I'm assuming."

"Something better than good, Care-bear. I have a name."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Gideon slammed on the breaks as he spotted the white and blue work-truck parked in the middle of the street. Caroline's body flew forward in her seat, the seatbelt restraining and constricting against her body to hold her in place. As Gideon and she leaped out of the car, she prayed that Franklin Graney was nearby.

After she had gotten the unsub's name from Garcia, Caroline had called Morgan and Reid to check out the phone line repair company that Franklin worked at. Not long after, Morgan called back and gave her a location—the neighborhood where she had been watching, waiting, for the unsub.

"This is his truck," Gideon said as he glanced around him. The Tommy Killer was here somewhere.

There was a loud screeching noise off to her right and Caroline's head whipped towards the noise. A large black SUV whirled beside the Honda, the brakes squealing from the force. Hotch and Elle jumped out of the car, both looking determined.

"Fan out. Go through yards," Gideon ordered to them. "Look at telephone poles. He's around here."

As quickly as they had arrived, the four agents took off in separate directions from each other. Caroline had started running through the street so fast she forgot to pull her hair up, the blonde locks unfurling behind her like waves as she ran.

The sun had finally come out and it beat down on her as she started checking everything—backyards, front yards, telephone poles. She felt a line of sweat run down her back but she ignored the heat. Her only focus now was Franklin Graney.

She could feel the panic bubble up in her chest. She couldn't think about anything other than arresting the son of a bitch. The sooner he was off the streets, the better. Maybe then she could finally shove down the uneasiness she had felt the whole time she's been in San Diego.

She was running up on her fourth house when she noticed the small yellow fence outlining the perimeter of the house was open to the backyard. She paused.

It could just be nothing. But she couldn't afford not to check.

As she walked through the open gate and crept through the backyard, she could hear a baby crying. She treaded through the small flower garden and past the blue pool as she followed the sound of the child's cries.

She froze when she saw the back door was wide open. Inside, she could see a small boy—no older than one or two—shrieking for his mother in his high-top chair. Laying beside the child on the kitchen counter was a tool belt with the insignia of Graney's work.

Caroline's hand immediately reached for her gun and unsheathed it from its holster, leveling it in front of her. She took quiet, careful steps inside, making absolutely no noise as she snuck in. She glanced around her—there was no one.

On the ground beside the crying toddler was his blue sippy cup, spilling what looked like orange juice all over the floor. The baby's head turned as she sneaked over to the blond child and he began to cry even louder, begging to let him out.

She leaned down closer to the baby and placed a small kiss on his blonde hair as she reached for her phone. The child whimpered and wailed as she pressed her number one on speed dial. She prayed that the baby's cries would mask the sound of her voice.

When the phone line picked up, she whispered into the phone, "875 Orange, Hotch."

She didn't wait for a reply as she hung up the phone and shoved it in her back pocket. She began to sneak through the kitchen, leaving the crying child behind her. She would come back for him later. She needed to find his mother first.

Caroline's heart pounded as she tip-toed up the stairs. Besides the baby, there was virtually no noise in the house—no screaming or yelling. Either the unsub was gagging his victim or she didn't have the strength to scream.

Caroline remembered vividly what it felt like to have her rapist's hand clamped down over her mouth. She didn't blame the woman for going quiet.

She had tried to scream, but after a while, she had just given up. There had been no point in trying. She just became a limp, lifeless body as he used her, not even able to cry anymore.

She wouldn't give up this time. She could not let what happened to her happen to another woman. She wouldn't let it.

Caroline walked down the upstairs hallway. Coming from what she assumed was the master bedroom was a muffled male voice. She couldn't make out what he was saying but she could hear the anger, the rage in his voice.

The floor creaked underneath her feet as she approached the closed door. She stopped and sucked in a breath, remaining as still as she possibly could. When she was sure no one had heard her, she let out a silent sigh of relief and swiftly approached the door.

Using one hand, she turned the doorknob and opened the door, pointing her gun into the room, training it at eye level as she stepped inside.

On the bed, she could see the baby's mother, her hands and feet bound, laying on the bed. She peeked up at Caroline through her dark blonde hair with her bloodshot, terrified eyes. She whimpered desperately for help through the tape on her mouth. Above her, Franklin Graney stood with a gun trained to the back of the mother's head, still in his work uniform. His gloved hand was steady as he held the gun, looking perfectly calm.

Her heart stopped.

"I'll shoot her," the short, balding man told her as Caroline took careful steps toward him. His dark eyes watched her, his finger resting lightly on the trigger.

"No, you won't, Franklin," she replied slowly, her voice steady and calm. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't force an ounce of kindness in her tone. She had absolutely no sympathy for him.

"Yes, I will."

The unsub's voice was strong, confident. There was no doubt in her mind he'd do it. And she knew exactly what to say.

"If you hurt her, I'll kill you. I'll just say we caught a low-life burglar. You didn't turn out to be Tommy after all."

Graney's face shifted in fear. He blinked like he was trying to ward off tears and she knew she had his attention. She had figured out his worst fear—being forgotten.

"You will remain uncaught," she continued, not missing a beat. "After a while, people will forget about you. You'll be nothing. Maybe once every 5 or 10 years, they'll do a TV show and they'll ask, 'Whatever happened to that Tommy guy? Why'd he disappear?' Then they'll stop talking about you altogether."

The unsub glanced down at the terrified woman in front of him. His eyes were glistening.

"Put the gun down. Come on. Walk out of here with me," she said. "I'll make sure your face is splashed across every newspaper and TV in the country. Tommy Killer: Franklin Graney." She willed calm to her veins, her heart. "Everyone will see you then. Bundy, Dahmer, Graney. The whole world will know who you are. It's up to you, Franklin. You can be famous, or you can be invisible."

The unsub's lip quivered. His voice was shaky, tearful as he whispered, "You'll tell everyone?"

"I have a media specialist outside right now. It is your choice."

"You promise?"

She felt the bile rise in her throats, but she shoved it back down. She managed a nod. "Yes, sir. I promise."

For a split second, everything was absolutely silent. She couldn't even hear the birds' song from outside the window anymore or the hostage's whimpers. All noise around her seemed to stop, like the world had just stopped rotating.

The unsub stared at her as he deliberated, his wide eyes flickering from her solemn face to the woman in front of him. He avoided looking at the gun she had leveled at his chest. He repeated the action a couple more times before slowly resting the gun on the bedspread beside the hostage and placing his hands on the back of his head, taking a step away from the woman in surrender.

"Back away from the gun," she told him, her weapon still aimed for his chest. He took a couple more steps away from the bed, his back pressing against the wall.

From behind her, she heard the shuffling footsteps of her reinforcements enter the bedroom. She didn't even bother to look behind her to know they had arrived.

Hotch brushed by her and latched onto Graney, grabbing his arms by his wrists and pulling them forcibly down behind his back. The unsub flinched but didn't complain. His eyes were locked onto Caroline's, staring at her with complete and absolute excitement.

A shiver went down her spine. He thought he was going to be revered for what he had done. He thought he was going to be a legend. It made her sick.

Even when Hotch and Gideon hauled him out of the room, she could still feel the Tommy Killer's eyes on her, that sick excitement chilling her bones.

As soon as Graney had cleared the room, she holstered her gun to her hip as Elle moved to the front of the bed to begin untying the young woman's legs. Caroline leaned down and carefully peeled the tape off the woman's mouth.

Her muffled cries became full-fledged sobs. "Where's my baby? My baby!"

"He's fine," Elle assured her, gently patting her legs as she squirmed, trying to free herself. "He's just fine."

Caroline carefully got on her knees in front of the woman, both of them on eye-level. The mother's tears rolled down her cheeks like streams and she tentatively reached out and touched the woman's soft blonde hair.

"Shh," she whispered soothingly as she began to stroke the woman's hair as she sobbed. "You're okay. You're going to be okay."

"Thank you," the woman said as she buried her head in the comforter, her whole body shaking. "Thank you."

As Caroline held the crying woman, something caused her to glance up at the window. She peered outside, and on the black telephone lines was a single bird—a black-headed grosbeak like the one before. She could hear its chirping from outside and she closed her eyes, gently resting her head against the woman's hair.

And for once in her whole life, Caroline let her walls down and let herself feel again.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline sat quietly on the plane, her arms wrapped around her shoulders as she stared out the small, oval window beside her. Outside, the sun had turned into a brilliant orange orb sinking into the pink and yellow sky. She relaxed into her leather seat, marveling at the beautiful sunset. 

Beside her, Reid sat with Gideon across from each him with a chessboard on the polished wood table in between them. She had watched their chess game for a while before she had gotten bored of watching Gideon silently and graciously win every match. In their current game, she didn't bother to check the board to see who was in the lead.

The rest of the plane was silent, preoccupied with their own endeavors. Caroline laid her head back against her seat and closed her eyes, allowing herself to drift with the soft oranges and yellows and pinks that bled into the sky outside.

Just as she was about to lull herself to sleep, she heard Gideon say, "Oh, I almost forgot!"

Caroline opened her eyes lazily, peeking over at the profiler curiously. He reached inside his leather bag resting beside him in the other chair and pulled out a small, gift-wrapped box. Wrapped around the present was a thin red ribbon tied sloppily into a messy bow on top. He extended the gift towards Spencer, who stared at it like Gideon was offering him a man-eating animal.

"This is for you," Gideon told him as she shifted in her seat to face them. "I forgot to give it to you at the party."

Both Reid and Caroline exchanged a look, raising their eyebrows quizzically at each other. This was a first.

As Spencer carefully took the present from Gideon's outstretched hands, he smiled nervously, "But you don't give birthday presents."

Gideon shrugged. Caroline curiously leaned over Reid's shoulder as he untied the ribbon and peeled back the blue wrapping paper. She wondered what Gideon could've possibly gotten him. Like Reid had mentioned earlier, he didn't give birthday presents. This had to be the first time she had seen Gideon give someone a gift— _ever_.

Underneath the wrapping was a rectangular yellow box. He carefully lifted the lid off and stared at the gift inside. Caroline peered over his shoulder and frowned at the present, confused.

"Wow," Reid said as he examined the red and yellow football tickets. "The Redskins."

"It's a VIP box," Gideon replied, a small smile on his lips. She sat back in her seat, chewing on her lip as she thought. Redskins tickets? She had never seen Spencer Reid watch a football game in the time that she had known him. It didn't make much sense as to why Gideon would get him tickets—expensive tickets—to a game with one of the greatest football teams in the nation.

Spencer smiled sincerely, pulling out the glossy tickets from the box. "Thank you so much."

"Ever been to a pro-football game?" Gideon asked the young man, watching the confusion plastered on his face as Reid examined the tickets. He glanced over at her and fanned the tickets out, showing them to her. Besides being confused, he looked fairly excited otherwise. She nodded and forced a small smile, trying to be supportive.

"No, I honestly didn't even know this was football," Reid admitted, chuckling.

Gideon grinned, "You're gonna love it."

"We are. You're coming with me, right?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "Someone else on the plane is a huge skins fan."

Spencer frowned. "Who?"

Gideon smiled and glanced over at Caroline. "The only person in the world who calls you Spence.

Her eyes widened as she felt the hot blush creep on her face. Luckily for her, Spencer didn't seem to notice. She felt a full army of butterflies erupt in her stomach.

"JJ?" Reid asked, an adorably dorky grin lighting up his face.

She felt her heart sink into her stomach like a rock, chasing away all the butterflies.

_JJ?_

"Wh—what should I say?" He mumbled nervously, more to himself than to anyone else. Neither Caroline nor Gideon answered, they were too busy staring at one another to respond.

Spencer nodded, as if taking their silence as an answer, and shook off his nerves. He slipped the tickets into his blue-and-yellow checkered shirt pocket as he stood from his seat. Caroline didn't watch as he moved to the back of the plane where JJ was sitting, doing paperwork.

She bit her lip and looked down at her hands, refusing to let herself think about what just happened—what was happening. She should be happy for him. Reid was finally asking someone out, and JJ was great. They'd be great together.

But despite how many times she told herself that, she couldn't shake the thick burn of tears she felt in the back of her throat.

"I meant those for you," she heard Gideon say as she stared at her pale clasped hands in her lap. Her head rose slowly. "The tickets. I hoped he would ask you."

It was silent. She was trying to think of what to say, how she felt. But she was pulling a blank.

Instead, all she could think of was, "How did you know I liked the Redskins?"

"Same way I know how the only thing you know how to cook is spaghetti and lasagna and you listen to 80s hits during your morning run," Gideon chuckled, as he leaned forward and tipped his black king down in the board. One more move and Reid would've checkmated him. He would've won for a change. "Spencer told me. He talks about you a lot, you know?"

She avoided his analyzing stare. "So? We're just friends."

"Maybe. But who else in your life would've noticed you bite your lip when you're nervous?"

Caroline swallowed and carefully slipped her bottom lip from underneath her teeth. She had been biting into it so hard that her lip ached in relief. She didn't even know she had been doing it.

_Reid noticed that?_

"You were right before," he said as she turned his head to look out at the brilliant sun setting outside. "Your life is none of my business. But what you went through today, what you had to do, was hard. You remained objective and didn't let yourself be ruled by your emotions. Given your past, it was impressive."

"Are you saying this as my boss?"

A small, sad smiled crept up on his face, "Whatever works for you, I suppose. A friend, an unbiased third party."

"So let's say you were talking to me as a friend," she said, her voice sounding thick and small. "What would you tell me to do?"

"I'd tell you that boy doesn't see you as just a friend. And based on your reaction, I think you feel the same."

She took a deep breath. She didn't know what she felt anymore. Everything just seemed so...complicated.

"I miss them," she whispered as she let her eyes wander to the sun outside. It relaxed her, watching the bright colors begin to fade into the purple night.

"Miss who?"

" _Them_. My parents, my little brother." She paused to swallow back the lump forming in her throat. "It's like whenever I think of them, I can't think or move or breathe. I'm paralyzed. Nothing is going to be able to fix that, Gideon."

"You're right. There is no way to erase what happened. To get back your family, your childhood," Gideon admitted, his tone calm and objective.

Caroline sighed and rested her head against the window. Her head was pounding, the pain thumping against her skull like a sledgehammer. She could feel her insides festering, almost like she was overheating from the inside out. Her hands immediately went to the skin on her arm and she poked at the pale membrane, expecting it to peel away like a rotting hide off a dead animal. It didn't.

Suddenly, His hands were in her hair, on her body. She could feel the gentle, possessive caress of His fingertips rolling down her cheek that made her stomach do a nauseating flip. She shuddered and recoiled back into her chair. She hugged her arms around her body, suddenly very cold.

"How do I make it _stop_?" She asked him softly, squeezing her eyes shut, hoping the memories would pass. "The memories, the pain?"

She felt something cool touch her hand and she peeked an eye open to see Gideon's hand resting on hers. His eyes were comforting, sympathetic.

"I'm afraid it'll never stop," he admitted regretfully. "But one day, you'll look back on that time in your life and it won't hurt as much. It might take a while, but it will get better."

She sniffled, trying her best to keep herself together. She wiped under her red-rimmed eyes for the tears that weren't falling. She steadied her breath.

"So what does any of this have to do about Spencer, again?"

Gideon chuckled and leaned back in his chair, pulling his hand off hers. "I assume he doesn't know."

She nodded. "I've thought about it, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it."

"I understand," said Gideon. "But I've seen the way he looks at you, Caroline. Your past won't affect that."

She ran a hand through her hair and teased the blonde strands with her fingers. She didn't know what to think. If what Gideon was saying was true...

Was it possible for her to have a future with Spencer? It seemed too good to be true.

"You know," Caroline said with a small smile on her face, "you're not the hard-ass everyone claims you are."

"Well, Ms. Lucas, there's a lot of things I think you still have to learn."

She laughed softly, "I think you're right."

As the jet streaked through the orange and pink sky, Caroline rested her head against the back of her chair and lulled herself to sleep with the hum of the plane engine.

And as she slept, her dreams, for once, weren't plagued with memories of the past.   
  



	15. Broken Mirror

**"** _When a good man is hurt, all who would be called good must suffer with him._ **"**

**— _Euripides_**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**TYPICALLY, CAROLINE DIDN'T PRY.** She liked to mind her own business and let people have their secrets. This was mainly because that's what she expected to have at work—privacy. The BAU had a silent agreement to never profile another member of the team unless absolutely necessary. They dig deep into the minds of some of the most ruthless and despicable human beings on this planet, and they didn't need to do that to each other. Their business was their business.

But, today, when Morgan and Reid strode by her in the hall at Quantico, talking about Spencer's recent date with JJ, she couldn't help herself. She had almost spilled her coffee all over her white blouse as she lunged forward, immediately getting in step with the boys in order to listen to their conversation.

"Good morning, Lucas," Morgan said to her as she tripped over her flats (she had decided to be sensible with her footwear today) with a large grin on his face, looking evidently satisfied.

She rolled her eyes, steadying herself. "And to you too, Morgan."

Reid, who towered over her, gave her a small smile, which was about as much greeting as she'd get. There was a slight blush in his cheeks like he was flustered or embarrassed.

Had that been there before, when Derek mentioned JJ? Had their date gone that well?

"So, you never did tell me what happened with you and JJ at the Redskins game," Derek nudged Spencer in the side with his elbow playfully, resuming their earlier conversation. Caroline started to chew on her lip, anxiously waiting for his answer.

Reid shook his head, smirking. "Top secret."

She stared up at her friend, glowering. That was all he had to say for himself? " _Top secret_ "? Seriously? Was this a joke to him?

The whole time he had been on his date, Caroline hadn't been able to sleep. She tried everything from warm milk, sleeping tablets and even the fancy noise machine Haley had gotten her for her insomnia at her apartment that made her bedroom sound like she was at the ocean, the soft waves crashing onto the sandy shores. Nothing had been able to stop her mind.

Endless possibilities raced through her head, drowning out everything around her. She pictured them sitting together, laughing. Holding hands. Acting as a couple. And later on in the night, if Spencer had walked her to her door like the gentleman he was, he might have even kissed JJ like he had kissed Caroline six months ago—softly, sweetly. A caressing rain and a gentle breeze.

She couldn't shake the thought. She couldn't even look at JJ without feeling an enormous amount of jealousy and guilt. Caroline even had to turn down their weekly breakfast date because she couldn't stand it. She knew that she wouldn't be able to listen to JJ gush about her date without getting sick to her stomach.

In fact, she felt the twisting pull in her stomach and a wave of nausea came over her. She swayed a little, stopping in her tracks. She pressed her hand against the wall, balancing herself.

Reid and Morgan both paused in the middle of the hallway to check on the blonde girl when they noticed she was no longer following. Spencer took a step towards her, examining her pale face, concerned.

"Care?" He said, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright?"

She straightened up immediately, shrugging her arm away from his hand. She took a step back and held up her hands in front of her, her palms facing him as if she were trying to ward him away.

She just couldn't have him touching her right now. It hurt too much to know that he was right there—standing right in front of her—and she had lost him. Her heart ached so much she could barely take it.

"I'm fine," Caroline murmured, slowly walking away from Derek and Spencer. They both watched her back away into the bullpen with concerned, decisive eyes. "I just remember I have to...uh, go...do something important. I'll catch up with you guys later."

The moment Caroline stepped through the glass doors into the BAU, she let out a relieved sigh.

She couldn't keep dodging Spencer like this. They worked together, for Christ's sake. Both of them had a very important job to do, and one wrong step or one wrong move could jeopardize someone's life. She wouldn't let that happen.

She decided whatever happened between Reid and JJ stays between them. It was none of Caroline's business and she would just have to let it—whatever it was that she felt— go.

No matter how much it killed her.

As Caroline stood in the doorway gripping her cup of coffee, spaced out in thought, Elle approached her with a file on hand. She paused for a moment, raising a suspicious eye at the blonde's zoned-out expression. The dark-haired woman reached out and waved a hand in front of Caroline's face, snapping her out of her reverie.

"Earth to Caroline," Elle chuckled as her eyes focused on the dark-haired, professionally dressed woman.

"Hey, sorry," she said as she rubbed her head, shaking out of her daze. "What's up?"

Elle held up the file. "The Davenport case. The files are in the conference room."

"Oh, right. The Davenport case. Does Hotch know?"

"I dunno," Elle shrugged. "Do you mind to go and check?" Caroline shook her head. She had been in his office on numerous occasions—most of them being to hide from Gideon when he wanted her reports. "Perfect. Thanks, Care."

"No problem," she said as Elle brushed by her.

The Davenport case, Caroline mused as she headed to Hotch's office. They had gotten the call from JJ this morning. New Haven's local District Attorney Evan Davenport's daughter, Patricia Davenport, had been kidnapped last night. After a long night of partying with her boyfriend, she never returned home. Concerned, her father called the police and what they found was Patricia's car with her boyfriend in the driver's side with a bullet in his brain. Patricia Davenport was nowhere to be seen. The FBI Connecticut field office was requesting the BAU's assistance in New Haven as soon as possible.

When she reached Hotch's office, she paused in the open doorway. Hotch was on the phone.

"So it sounds like bed rest isn't turning out to be very restful," he said as Caroline rapped her knuckles against the door. He turned his head and saw her in the doorway. He held up a finger and mouthed, "One minute" before returning to his phone call. He paused to listen to the person speaking on the other end.

Caroline crossed her arms, waiting patiently as Hotch chuckled. "Honey, just try to relax and get a little rest, ok?" Another pause. "Yes, I'll tell Caroline you said hello. I love you too. Bye."

Hotch hung up and slipped his cellphone into the pocket of his black suit jacket before facing her.

"Everything alright?" She asked her boss, concerned. Since last week, Haley had been put on bed rest until her due date and it was something Mrs. Hotchner wasn't taking well. On the last visit she made, Haley was so bored with pent-up energy that she even wanted to know what Caroline had done while she was at work—something she never does due to the fact she can't stand the details of her job.

"Yeah. The doctors are worried about Haley's blood sugar levels," replied Hotch, sighing. "They're worried about pre-eclampsia, and I'm worried she's not gonna last 6 weeks in bed."

"She wants out of the hospital," she told him. "She also said it was my job to convince you to let her go home."

He chuckled and shook his head. "Of course she did. Well, you can tell her she's staying at the hospital until the doctor thinks it's safe for her and the baby."

"I'll just tell her you're thinking about it."

He gave another short shake of his head, almost looking exasperated. But honestly, what did he expect? Caroline and Haley had been ganging up on him since day one.

"So, was there something you needed?" Hotch asked after a moment of silence.

"Oh, right!" She gestured towards the conference room across the bullpen with a wave of her hand. "The Davenport files are here."

Hotch's face immediately became more serious and focused. He was always ready to solve a case. He gave her a hard, almost robotic, nod as he brushed by her in the doorway, briskly heading toward the conference room with Caroline on his heels.

When they entered the large room, Gideon, Elle, Derek, and Reid all turned their heads from the TV screen, focused and expectant. Caroline's eyes danced over the screen, examining the evidence displayed.

They had pulled up a copy of the kidnapped ransom note. The messy, scrawled out handwriting almost seemed to jump out the page like the words were trying to escape off the old, stained paper.

Reid, once he knew everyone was in the room, began to read the letter aloud.

"'You will follow instructions carefully. You will do this to ensure the safety of your daughter. You will wait for the call. You will answer the call at 8 P.M. You will write down the instructions and follow them to the letter.'"

"That gives us less than 9 hours to get to Connecticut, work up victimology on Trish Davenport, and prepare her father for the ransom drop," Hotch said after Reid finished.

Gideon's brows furrowed and he leaned towards the screen, squinting his eyes at the letter. "How do we know the letter's real?"

"The handwriting is a match for Trish's," replied Hotch. He pointed to a couple of dark stains on the corner of the paper. "And they also found saline on the letter."

"Her tears," Caroline whispered, her stomach churning. The unsub forced Trish Davenport to write her own ransom letter.

"He never says _'I',_ " Morgan noticed, leaving back in his chair. "He doesn't say, ' _I will call_ '. He says, _'You will answer the call'_. He's distancing himself from the kidnapping." He shook his head, almost in disbelief. "If he said _'I',_ he'd be taking responsibility for it."

"There's also another missing element," Hotch observed.

"No mention of police involvement," Caroline said, her voice thoughtful. Everyone turned back to look at the blonde agent. "Ransom notes almost always forbid police involvement."

"So is he expecting law enforcement to get involved?" Hotch sounded confused, almost as if he couldn't understand why a kidnapper wanted police involvement.

Gideon slowly rose from his seat. "Well, if he's expecting us, let's not disappoint him."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"Everyone familiar with Mr. Davenport?" Hotch asked everyone, checking to make sure the BAU was prepared. They hadn't had time to brief themselves on the case, Gideon and Hotch had mainstreamed all of them to the jet for takeoff. Caroline could feel her stomach press against her spine from sheer force as the jet zoomed through the sky.

Reid, who was sitting beside her, sat up and peeked his head over his chair back at Hotch. "Evan Davenport, U.S. Attorney, executive assistant, southern district, Connecticut. Widower, assigned U.S. Marshals 3 times in the past 10 years due to death threats."

"Is the protective detail still current?" Derek asked as he mulled over the case file.

Hotch nodded, "Around the clock but Trish declined protection when she turned 18."

Elle sighed and shook her head. "That's too bad for the boyfriend."

"But why kill him?" Reid asked.

"Well, if I'm going to kidnap someone, I know I'm going to have to kill whoever's with them." Derek paused, then frowned down at the file he was flipping through. "It says here she's got a sister?"

Caroline began to search through the stack of files in front of her. "Yeah, Cheryl."

"Any problems? Were they close?"

She smiled a little when she found what she was searching for. She pulled out the glossy photo carefully and rotated in her chair, presenting it to Derek.

He examined the photo and his eyes widened. The photo was of Cheryl and Trish, both in their high school cheerleading uniforms, both had their blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. The only problem was he couldn't tell which sister was Trish or which one was Cheryl.

"They are very close," Caroline stated, tapping the picture gently. "They're identical twins."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline stared at the girl lying on the dirt road, wondering if she was ever going to stand up. Some small part of her began to think the young woman was dead by how still she was laying, never moving or saying a word. She had been tempted several times to walk over to the girl, but she remained rooted in her spot.

Silently, Derek and she had been waiting, watching, Cheryl Davenport lie in the middle of the crime scene where her twin sister was kidnapped. Her straight-as-a-stick platinum blonde hair was fanned out around her in the dirt road, collecting clumps of fine, powdery dust and various dirt particles strewn about. She was wearing a brown tweed jacket with a grey skirt, paired with long leather black boots with a two-inch heel. Very scholarly. Caroline recalled reading in the file that Cheryl was majoring in physics at school, and was quite talented at that. A smart girl like that had her own way of processing things.

Finally, after getting tired of watching, Derek leaned over to the two frowning bodyguards Mr. Davenport had hired for his daughter.

"What is she doing?" He asked.

The male bodyguard sighed, exasperated, "Lying on the road."

"Yeah, I see that," Derek replied, his voice a bit sharper than before, "but why?"

The other bodyguard, the woman, puckered her lips and shrugged her shoulders. "She said she's trying to get a feel for what happened to her sister."

Derek frowned, his face plastered in skepticism. "By laying on the ground?"

"That girl spent years perfecting ways to ditch her bodyguards," the woman replied, crossing her arms out in front of her. "We're just happy she's in our line of sight."

Derek glanced over at Caroline and gave her a look of disbelief. She held her hands up in resignation—she had no clue what to do in a situation like this.

He sighed and started moving closer towards Cheryl with Caroline trailing close behind. The rocks and gravel crunched underneath their weight as they approached the girl lying in the road. 

"Cheryl Davenport?" Morgan asked her, his voice calm and professional.

"Shh!" The girl held up a finger but didn't look up at the federal agents. "Just a minute, please."

Derek rolled his eyes and as if she could sense it, Cheryl sighed, "And no, I'm not crazy. I'm laying here for a reason."

After a moment, the blonde girl sat up slowly with a puzzled look plastered on her face. She glanced around at the ground as if she were searching for something she had lost, before she stood up from the road, brushing off the dirt from her skirt.

"He dragged her from the car," Cheryl said, her voice strong and confident. She pointed to a spot about a foot from where she was standing," There. This is where Trish fell. Trisha is a fighter. She wouldn't have gone quietly, not even with a gun pointed at her head."

Caroline and Derek shared a look.

"She's right," she told her co-worker, presenting him the file in her hands. "There are nail marks on the car seat."

His eyes narrowed once he glanced over the file. He turned to Cheryl. "So you believe your sister's still alive?"

"I know she's still alive," replied Cheryl, still as confident as ever. Caroline examined her face and body language and could she truly believed it.

"You know the way twins know?" She asked the girl, raising an eyebrow. Oh, boy, if Reid were here to hear this, he'd have a field day. He had read extensively on telepathic communication in twins before and the concept absolutely fascinated him. If only he were here to—

She paused the moment she realized what she was doing. She chided herself, reminding herself to snap out of it. Reid was quite possibly in a relationship with JJ now and Caroline had a case to focus on. She couldn't get distracted.

"Not the 'I can feel my twin's pain' crap. If you stick her with a needle, I don't cry out," Cheryl said, shaking her head, "But if something is bothering her, if something is wrong, I can feel it. Even from 1,000 miles away at college."

Caroline nodded respectfully. Although she wasn't a twin herself, she did have a twin brother and sister, and those two were as thick as thieves. She could even remember a time where Caitlin had fallen from playing in the yard, causing her to scrap her knee. She had cried for the longest time as Caroline cleaned out her wound. The next thing she knew, Charlie was running down the porch steps from his room because he knew that "something wasn't right".

"You study physics, right?" She asked Cheryl as Derek stepped away to speak with her bodyguards. She could tell Derek didn't buy into the whole twin-telepathy theory.

"If you're asking why a science major would believe in something non-scientific, I don't," she explained to her, almost sounding defensive. "I just know what I feel. And my feeling is that my sister is still alive."

Caroline didn't say anything in response. Whether she believed Cheryl's feeling or not was irrelevant. The fact was this: Trish had been kidnapped and they had less than twelve hours to get her back or Cheryl might lose her best friend.

Whatever she told herself to let her cope with that worked just fine for Caroline.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

After investigating Trish's abduction scene, Derek and Caroline escorted Cheryl home to where the local FBI office was setting up the equipment to answer the ransom call. When they first arrived, Reid was explaining which buttons answer the call or mute it to Mr. Davenport, a tall middle-aged man with pepper black hair and the same dark eyes as his daughters. She had noticed the dark purple bags under his eyes and his weak, slouched posture and she realized he probably hasn't gotten any sleep since yesterday.

How could he? His daughter had been kidnapped.

As Caroline and Derek headed towards the kitchen to do some recon before the ransom call, they ran into Agent Shyer, one of the lead investigators from the Connecticut field office.

Caroline's shoulder bumped into the tall, gangly man's shoulder and she tottered on her feet, taking a step back to keep her balance.

"I'm sorry!" She immediately apologized to the agent. "I wasn't watching where I was going."

The sandy blonde-haired agent chuckled. "Hey, no harm, no foul. I'm just glad the BAU was able to make it here on such short notice."

"It's what we live for," Derek muttered sarcastically behind her and her elbow jammed into his side. There was a quiet groan of pain and Caroline gave the agent a kind smile.

"We just hope to find Trish soon," she told him.

"Well, with the BAU here, I think we're in good hands," the agent said before walking down the hallway and disappearing into the foyer.

Caroline stared after the agent and frowned. She couldn't explain it, but something felt off about him. He was too friendly. Then she shook her head. No, she was probably just overthinking again—another habit of the job.

"Why did you have to elbow me?" Derek hissed at her as they continued their way into the polished marble kitchen. "He didn't even hear me."

"He could've. And we do not need another crazy agent working against us because of you again."

"Hey!" Morgan protested, sounding offended. "That was one time and the guy deserved it. And nothing is as crazy as Cheryl and her twin telepathy."

"Oh? So you think she's a whack job because she claims she can feel her sister's anxiety?"

"I didn't say whack job, I said crazy. There's a difference."

At that moment, Reid walked into the room, overhearing their conversation. He came over and stood beside Caroline, already beginning to go into his detailed explanation.

"Actually there might be a physiological basis for twin telepathy," he explained to them with a small smile on his face. Derek groaned and rolled his eyes and Caroline only chuckled at Reid and his facts, "Reversed asymmetry monozygotic eggs split late between 9 to 12 days. The DNA matches down to the very last stranded code, and there's sporadic documentation of shared physiological pain."

Derek frowned, "And you believe it?"

"No, I'm just saying it's possible. I don't know everything, despite the fact you think I do."

"I never said that! When have I ever said that?"

Both Caroline and Reid shared an exasperated look as Hotch entered the room, checking his watch. He watched the conversation silently.

"Every day since I met you," Reid answered before Derek turned to Caroline to back him up.

"This morning at breakfast," she recounted thoughtfully as Hotch joined in and added, "Yesterday when he beat you at cards. And we have a minute until the ransom call."

Derek snorted indignantly as the profilers filed their way out of the kitchen. "Hasn't anyone here heard of sarcasm?"

In unison, Reid and Caroline muttered, "Mm-hm."

As the profilers entered the room, they gathered around the table with all the equipment set up. Mr. Davenport sat at the head of the table, staring blankly at the clock on the wall, counting down the seconds in his head until the clock struck 8. Gideon and Hotch sat on opposite sides of him, in case they needed to step in for the ransom call for some unforeseen reason. Reid had nestled himself in a small, red love seat, outfitted with the proper headphones to listen in to the call. He had his laptop out in front of him on the coffee table he had pulled up, ready to take notes and record the ransom call. Elle and Derek stood in the corner, dripping with anticipation. Caroline had opted to stand by herself and stay on her feet, for she always thought better when she was on her toes.

Naturally, almost as if the girl gravitated towards her, Cheryl came over and stood beside Caroline, completely silent. She could feel the blonde girl's anticipation and anxiety rolling off her like a fog and instinctually, Caroline patted Cheryl's shoulder gently. The girl turned and gave her a grateful look before she lowered her hand.

"Remember, keep your voice even and calm and agree with everything he says," Gideon spoke clearly to Mr. Davenport, his voice concise and detached. The sound of the antique clock chiming as it hit the hour-mark caused everyone to go deadly silent, waiting.

A second passed. Then two. Then three.

Four. Five. Six...

"He's late," Mr. Davenport said, his voice strangled and raspy from unshed tears.

"He'll call," Hotch assured him. "Just try to relax. This is his strategy. He wants you on edge."

Suddenly, the phone rang, the trill bell sound cut through the silence. Mr. Davenport shot up in his chair, his eyes wide. He turned to Gideon, almost as if he was looking for approval.

"Remember to repeat any important information he gives you to make sure you understand," Gideon reminded him, nodding towards the phone. "You try to keep him talking to reveal something about Trish or about himself."

Mr. Davenport nodded, his Adam's Apple bobbing as he swallowed. Slowly, he reached for the flashing green button in front of him and pressed it. His finger lingered as he pulled away, listening for any signs of life on the other side of the phone.

"This is Evan Davenport."

" _Hello, Mr. Davenport_."

Chills ran up Caroline's spine. The unsub's voice came through clearly on the phone. There wasn't an ounce of worry or doubt or fear. He just sounded...cold. Calculating.

Absolutely no emotion.

Tears appeared in the corner of Mr. Davenport's eyes. "Are you the man who has my daughter Patricia?"

" _I have your daughter_."

"Can I ask you—"

" _You may ask me nothing_ ," the unsub stated, almost scolding. " _This is not an interrogatory. You will listen only to my instructions_."

"Ok."

" _But I will not give them to you._ "

Caroline's brow furrowed in confusion as Mr. Davenport frowned. "I don't understand."

There was a soft sigh from the phone. " _I do not what to talk to you, Mr. Davenport_ ," the unsub slowed down his talk condescendingly, almost as if he were talking to a three-year-old.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand—"

The unsub's breath caught, his voice rough. " _I want to talk to her_."

Almost as if they could sense it, everyone turned to look at Cheryl. She glanced over at Caroline with wide, frightened eyes and a paled face.

The unsub breathed into the phone, " _I want to talk to Cheryl_."  
  



	16. Dominance

**"** _There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts._ **"**

**— _Voltaire_  
**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**GIDEON LUNGED FORWARD AND** hit the mute button on the recorder, now signaling that they were free to speak. Mr. Davenport's eyes shifted from person to person in the room, his face a pale shade from the strain.

"What's he doing?" The father demanded.

Derek sighed from behind Caroline, "What most of the offenders we catch try to do...establish dominance."

"How long can we keep him on hold?" Elle asked.

Hotch shook his head in response, "We can't put her on."

Beside her, Cheryl whirled to Hotch. "Why not? I want to help. I'll talk to him."

Caroline bit her lip as she thought. It didn't make sense—Cheryl didn't have the authority that her father holds. The unsub shouldn't want to talk to her. Yet, they're standing here, discussing their next move when the best one in clear and simple.

"I think that she should speak to him," Caroline admitted to the room, which caused everyone to give her a shifty look, letting her know that she wasn't helping to calm Cheryl's confidence.

Before anyone could say a word to her, the unsub's voice cut through the phone, agitated, " _Did I not make myself clear? I want to talk to Cheryl? Put her on the phone. Now._ "

Gideon's look on his face was spaced out, deep in thought, "No."

"I think she should speak to him," Caroline repeated again, steeling her voice. "He wants to talk to her. The more he speaks, the more he reveals."

"She is right, Gideon," Derek admitted begrudgingly.

Cheryl stepped forward, her hands clasped in front of her as if she were begging, "He has my sister. Please."

Gideon glanced between Cheryl and Mr. Davenport. It was silent for a moment before Gideon made his decision.

"No."

" _I'm waiting_ ," the unsub drawled, his voice dark and menacing.

"Caroline," Gideon motioned the young agent over and she sighed reluctantly, but she obliged and stood over the phone as Gideon's finger hovered over the unsure button.

 _This was not a good idea_ , she thought to herself. The best thing was to get the unsub off-balance, get more information. Not to trick him.

But she was young and inexperienced in the eyes of her superiors. Too quick to reach for a gun, too impulsive. She doesn't know everything.

Gideon pressed the button and Caroline took a deep breath, softening her voice to sound more neutral and quiet.

"This is Cheryl," she said carefully. She heard the unsub sigh, almost exasperated, but no response. She tried again, "Hello? This is Cheryl."

" _I have Patricia by my side. I know her voice, therefore I know her sister's_ ," the unsub chided Caroline. " _Get off the phone. I want Cheryl. I'll give you 60 seconds—if you don't put her on the phone, I will hang up and you will never hear from me or Patricia again._ "

Gideon hit the mute button and moved out of his chair, motioning for Caroline to sit.

"Prep her," he instructed the young agent as Gideon gestured for Cheryl to move across the room to replace her father's seat at the phone.

The blonde girl moved swiftly, tucking her hair behind her ears nervously as the unsub began to count down, " _50 seconds_."

"This guy is arrogant," Caroline told her calmly but clearly, keeping her mind focused. She had less than a minute to teach Cheryl Davenport how to speak to a sociopath and every second counted. "Let him know that he's in control. Let him guide the conversation."

" _40_."

"Use your sister's name. Say, ' _My sister Trish_ ' or ' _Her name is Patricia_ ,'" she said as Cheryl settled into the seat her father once resided in. Now, he stood behind his daughter, wringing his hands nervously as Cheryl listened to Caroline intently, nodding to everything she said.

" _35 seconds._ "

Cheryl nodded as she continued, ignoring the unsub' clock, "Talk about her. Let him get to know her through you. Don't veer off-topic."

"Got it," Cheryl murmured weakly, suddenly staring down at the phone like it was going to attack her.

" _25 seconds_."

"Also, agree with him. Tell him that you understand him, and as hard as this sounds, empathize."

" _20 seconds_."

"Let him know that he didn't mean to hurt Trish or go this far and that he can fix it. He has a chance to show that he's a kind and forgiving person by letting your sister go."

" _10 seconds_."

Cheryl's doe-eyes focused on her, wide and frightened. She could see the cracks coming through, the fear. Her sister's life was now riding on her back. She was alone and completely lost.

Caroline rested her hand over Cheryl's gently, giving her an assuring smile, "And if you don't know what to say, I'll tell you."

" _3_ —"

Caroline glanced over at Cheryl as she reached over and her finger hovered over the unmute button. She swallowed.

" _2_ —"

Cheryl turned to Caroline and nodded, taking a deep breath, trying to stay calm.

" _1_ —"

Caroline hit the button and the room was suddenly deadly quiet except for the ticking of the clock on the wall. Cheryl scooted closer towards the phone, her hands clasped tightly in her lap to keep from shaking.

"This is Cheryl," she said, her voice surprisingly even. She looked to Caroline for confirmation and the young agent smiled and nodded her head encouragingly.

" _Hello, Cheryl_ ," the unsub's voice breathed through the phone. " _How are you?_ "

The girl's eyebrow shot up in confusion but didn't fall for the bait. "I'd be a lot better if I knew that my sister...Patricia's ok."

The unsub chuckled lightly, as if he were having a normal conversation, " _I can tell you have a lot of empathy, Cheryl. You care about others._ "

"Yes, I do. And it sounds like you understand."

Caroline nodded. She was doing well.

" _You mean I_ empathize?" the unsub drawled out ' _empathize_ ' making it sound more awkward and foreign.

Cheryl frowned. "Yes."

" _I do. Very much. I empathize. I empathize with you, Cheryl. I know you want to be with your sister_."

Caroline reached over and grabbed a sharpie and a yellow pad of notebook paper, scrawling a message over the lined paper. She presented it to Cheryl when she was finished and she glanced over it, nodding. It read: **You want Trish back**.

"Yes, I want Trish back," Cheryl said, her voice becoming more prominent and strong.

" _Good. Tell me what you want, Cheryl. I'm very interested,_ " the unsub taunted. " _I'm very interested. Tell me all about yourself. What's your favorite color?_ "

Caroline leaned over and muted the conversation. "Don't answer that. Stay with Trish."

Cheryl nodded and she hit the button again.

"If I tell you, will you let me talk to my sister?" Cheryl asked.

The unsub chucked, " _Maybe. Maybe not_."

The blonde girl took a deep breath and Caroline could see the tears in the corners of her eyes. "I like blue."

" _How ordinary_ ," the unsub remarked. " _Do you like chocolate, Cheryl?_ " Cheryl glanced over at Caroline, confused at to what to say. " _Do...you...like...chocolate?_ "

"Yes," she replied, her voice weak from trying to hold back tears. Her father rubbed her back encouragingly.

" _I do as well._ "

Cheryl shut her eyes tightly together. "Please, let me talk to my sister."

It went silent on the other end. They all waited for a response, something. But nothing came. Panicked, Cheryl cast Caroline a desperate look and she held up her hand, telling her to wait. She motioned for her to continue talking, to keep prodding the unsub.

"All I want to do is hear her voice," Cheryl begged, her voice becoming shaky as her eyes began to water. Her resolve was breaking. "Please."

There was a soft creak on the other end of the line and everyone leaned forward, listening intently. Cheryl sat up in her chair, her eyes wide as she listened. "Hello?"

There was a moment of silence then a girl's soft voice came over the phone, weak and drowsy, " _Cher..._ "

Caroline let out a small sigh of relief. Trish was alive.

"Trish!" The blonde girl exclaimed.

" _Cheryl, is that you?_ " The other Davenport sister murmured, her heavy breathing marring her words.

"Trish, it's me. I'm here. Are you ok?"

Trish sighed on the other end, " _Cheryl, I can't..._ "

"Where are you? What do you see?"

" _I...I see the moon_."

Caroline glanced up and shared a look with Hotch, who looked grimly down at the phone. There was no way Trish Davenport was being held outside, there was no way to control the victim. More than likely, Trish has been drugged and was hallucinating.

Then there was the sound of a door creaking open. Cheryl sucked in a breath as there were scuffling and the sound of something hitting the floor.

"Trish!" Cheryl gasped, tears falling down her face as she called for her twin. "Trish!"

Suddenly the voice on the phone wasn't Trish's, but the cold, calculating tone of the unsub.

" _Have 500,000 ready,_ " he instructed sharply.

"Let me talk to her!" Cheryl sobbed, her body shaking as she tried to hold back tears. Caroline rested a calming hand on her quivering shoulder.

" _$500,000 is what I'm owed,_ " the unsub's voice replied, unrelenting and uncaring. " _The Davenports will wait by the phone. You will receive a call with precise instructions in exactly 15 minutes._ "

There was a sharp click and the line went dead. The unsub hung up.

Cheryl, gasping for air, looked around at the BAU, the look on her face beyond terror. She shot up from her chair and ran off, with the father on her heels.

Gideon glanced over at Reid, still frowning, and asked, "Were you able to trace the call?"

Reid slowly pulled off his headphones dejectedly and shook his head. "No. He's probably using a disposable cell phone. They're impossible to trace."

"She said she could see the moon," Caroline murmured out loud as she thought, frowning. "She sounded delirious, sedated."

"Could've been a light," Gideon suggested.

Derek scoffed, "If he's keeping her drugged, it might mean he's not very strong. He might have to keep her weak so he can dominate her."

"Or to keep her quiet," Caroline offered. Derek shrugged and nodded in agreement.

"Has Davenport told us everything about his staff?" Gideon inquired.

"Yeah, we have detailed reports, but we should probably revisit background on household staff, aides, and current docket," said Hotch.

It went silent among the agent. Caroline had the feeling they were all thinking the same thing. Her theory was only confirmed when Derek spoke up.

"Guys, she wasn't blindfolded," he mentioned as everyone shared uneasy looks. "That means she's seen his face and as soon as he gets that money..."

Caroline looked up at her teammates and swallowed, "He'll kill her."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

She tried not to be pessimistic, she truly did. But it was hard not to face the facts.

Caroline paced up and down the corridor connecting the kitchen and the living room as her mind swirled with thoughts and images. The only sound there was in the empty hallway was the antique wood creaking as her heels dug into the floor. She tried to think of something else, anything to pass the next 6 minutes, but she couldn't.

The rest of the team had holed up in Mr. Davenport's office to sort the logistics of the ransom and money transfer with Mr. Davenport while she had opted out. She couldn't think about the random drop when so much didn't make sense about the whole situation.

The unsub had been rigid the whole conversation with Mr. Davenport. No emotion, no indications of any kind of interest in speaking to him at all. His only true interest hadn't even been the money, but speaking to Cheryl. She didn't have control over the money, she shouldn't have been facilitating the ransom call.

But she did and it was the most response the unsub had shown the whole phone call. It didn't make sense.

Caroline paused when she heard the scuffle of movement come from the kitchen. She frowned and quietly slipped inside the small kitchen. She saw Cheryl standing at the counter, grasping a large glass of wine as she poured what looked like a very expensive wine inside of it. Caroline shook her head and snuck up behind the girl. Cheryl stared at her as she carefully slipped the wine bottle and glass out of her hand and set it beside the sink, not saying a word.

"Look, I know I shouldn't be drinking, but under the circumstances, you think you could let this one slide?" Cheryl asked Caroline, frowning.

"He's going to call back," she told the blonde girl calmly, despite the girl being highly annoyed. "We need you at your best."

Cheryl sucked in a deep breath, the agitation washing away and being replaced with worry. She bit her lip and glanced up at Caroline.

"Have...have you had many cases like this?"

Caroline gave her a small, knowing smile. "I've seen my fair share of abductions."

"I didn't know how you do it," Cheryl admitted, shaking her head, "this job. How do you stomach it?"

"The men I hunt down are cowards," Caroline told her. "For the most part, they target the weakest members of society, women, and children. There's nothing I'd rather do more than but the bastards away."

Cheryl frowned, "I just wish you could get them before they snatch someone."

"Trish is alive," Caroline told her. "You've trusted your feelings this far. Hold on to that."

Cheryl looked up at her and she could see the deep, terrified desperation in her eyes. Caroline could remember feeling that six years ago all too well. She had been separated from her family, her lifeline. When He wasn't with her, taking advantage of her and every part of the situation she was forced in, Caroline was terrified. Her worst fear was that _He_ was doing the exact same to her little sister or her mother.

It's the fact that she didn't know, or she couldn't stop it, that killed her. It was what caused the desperation that drove her mad.

Still to this day, whenever she was on a case, she couldn't help but check where her family members were. She understood where Cheryl came from.

She truly wished she could stop the criminals before they committed their crime.

Then again, she wished for a lot of things.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Exactly 15 minutes later, the unsub called again and gave his precise instructions. It was mostly basic, with the only exception being that everything had to be done by Cheryl. Cheryl had to gather the money packets. Cheryl had to make the drop, no wires and no look-a-likes or Trish would die. Cheryl had to be alone in her car, no one could follow her and no surveillance was allowed. The unsub would only give directions to Cheryl over the phone as she drives and she must make the drop at exactly 3:00 A.M.

All the small, minute details he named off revolved around Cheryl. His whole focus seemed to be more about getting her isolated than receiving the money.

And it bothered Caroline to no end.

She stood silently in the foyer, watching the antique clock as the hour hand passed 3 A.M. Morgan and Hotch left an hour ago to trail Cheryl, checking to make sure she would be in no danger. She hasn't gotten an update call and she began to feel anxious.

Something wasn't right about the whole random drop. She felt the aching suspicion but she couldn't place it.

Suddenly, the front door opened and Derek barged into the Davenport house with Hotch trailing behind him with Cheryl, who looked as pale as a sheet. But there was no Trish.

Mr. Davenport sat up and walked over to the group with a confused look on his face. Caroline took one look at Derek's and knew something went horribly wrong.

"Where is Trish?" Mr. Davenport demanded, glancing back at his other daughter, concerned. "What happened?"

"It wasn't a ransom drop," Derek explain through gritted teeth. "It was an attempted second kidnapping."

Everyone's eyes widened. Mr. Davenport rushed to his daughter and pulled her in a hug, holding her close to him as if he let go she would be gone.

Caroline bit her lip as everyone entered the foyer. She knew something had been off about the whole situation...

Then, the phone rang. Everyone froze.

Derek, who happens to be closest to the phone, held up a hand as he reached to answer the call, signaling the room to be silent. The room gathered around the phone as Derek hit the button and no one dared to say as they waited to hear what the unsub had to say.

" _That was fun, wasn't it?_ " The unsub said, sounding out of breath. " _A little running around, getting our pulses racing. Are you there, Cheryl?_ " Caroline immediately held up a hand to the blonde girl and shook her head, warning her not to answer. Cheryl nodded in response. " _Are you there_?!"

" _Tell me you didn't feel a slight tingle, a thrill run up you spine_ ," he breathed, his voice becoming chill and breathy as if he was pressing his mouth directly against the receiver on the phone. " _Huh? But those clever and cunning FBI agents deduced my little plane just in time—they figured it out. If they hadn't, I would have had you both._ " He sighed, almost sounding disappointed. " _The whole pair. The matching set_."

"Why are you doing this?" Cheryl demanded, no longer sounding weak and scared. She was angry and very determined. Caroline gave her a warning glance. She couldn't encourage him right now, especially if they were to figure out what he wanted.

" _Because you asked me to, Cheryl,_ " the unsub said. " _You asked me to with your glances. The way you talk...those little gestures—_ "

Derek reached over and hit the mute button. Cheryl turned on him, her eyes wide and furious.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

All Derek replied with was, "Do not answer him."

" _You asked for this, Cheryl! You asked for it!_ "

Caroline saw the change in her eyes before Cheryl moved. The small, quiet fear boiled into a hard fast determination that made her blue eyes look almost dangerous. Before she could stop her, Cheryl pushed Derek's hand off the mute button, against his protests, and positioned herself over the phone.

"What do you want?" She yelled into the phone, almost quivering with anger.

" _What do I want?! You!_ " The unsub snapped at Cheryl, his voice becoming sharp. " _It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, but I promise you, we will be together._ "

And just as soon as he called, the unsub hung up and the phone static of the dead phone line filled the void of silence now present in the room. Cheryl, no longer determined, sank down in the chair behind her and put her head in her hands, her shoulders dropping over the rest of her body.

Caroline stared down at the phone with nothing she could possibly say. How could they have missed it? The unsub's demand to speak to Cheryl, his unnerving need to know simple facts about her...he was obsessed. And, judging by what the unsub said about Cheryl asking him with her " _glances_ ", he's been watching the Davenport twins for a long, long time.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"This is a crime of obsession. Your specialty, your lead, Morgan," Hotch said to Derek as the rest of the BAU (with the exception of Reid waiting in the living room with Mr. Davenport and Cheryl) gathered in the Davenports' red marble kitchen, waiting for a plan in order to proceed with the investigation. Beside Caroline, she noticed Gideon was silently peeling an orange, tearing at its smooth skin with a small serrated knife he had borrowed from the utensils drawer. The smell of fresh citrus wafted into the kitchen.

Morgan's mind immediately focused on the task at hand. "I think we should recheck everyone on Davenport's staff against the profile of a stalker."

"Aren't stalking behaviors pretty diverse?" Elle asked him.

"There's overlap," he admitted. "Narcissistic, inflated sense of self-worth, history of bad relationships—"

Elle sighed, "Okay, so what do we know so far?"

"He's probably white, obviously male with sophisticated speech patterns."

"Sophisticated, yet bizarre," Gideon spoke up in the middle of cutting the newly-peeled orange into slices. "He rarely uses contractions. It's not you're, it's you are."

Caroline frowned, biting her lower lip in thought. "Okay, so he's pretentious. He wants to sound smarter than he actually is. Whatever position of authority or level of success this has, he had to struggle for it."

Hitch glanced behind him as if he was double-checking for anyone overheating him as he leaned in, dropping his voice to a whisper. "We may also have to face the possibility that—"

"That Trish may already be dead," Elle finished as she reached for an orange slice. Gideon placed on in her palm as he began disbursing out the food to the five agents in the kitchen. Caroline took the citrus slice gratefully, biting into the juicy fruit slowly, savoring it. She hadn't eaten all day and it wasn't until she had something to eat that she realized how starved she actually was.

Derek took an aggressive bite out of his orange slice, his gums smacking as he chomped. "You know, this guy has called every play so far. I say we apply some pressure, make him sweat."

Gideon nodded, "Well, there's only one way to do that."


	17. Obsession

**"** _When love is in excess, it brings a man no honor, nor worthiness._ **"**

**— _Euripides_**

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

**THE ABSOLUTE SILENCE IN** the room hung over everyone as they waited by the phone. The scene around the living room was almost the same as the first two phone calls but this time instead of Mr. Davenport at the head of the table, it was Gideon, sitting as still as a statue as the clock ticked, counting the seconds that passed. Cheryl stood beside Caroline near the mantle on the fireplace, chewing on her nails in anxiety. Everyone else was still, focused solely on the phone.

Any minute now...

Gideon had been sparing with the details of the plan. All that she had been instructed to do was keep Cheryl away from the phone and Gideon would handle the rest.

It wasn't her place to question orders.

Suddenly, the phone rang like an alarm—abrupt and loud. Gideon rose from his seat as Mr. Davenport lunged forward to answer. He stopped the father with a terse nod of his head as the older agent leaned over the phone, his finger hovering over the answer key. Everyone waited with anticipation.

Gideon waited until after the sixth ring to press the flashing green button and the moment he did, he immediately hung up the phone.

Mr. Davenport reeled, a look of perplexity flashing across his face. "What are you doing?"

Gideon didn't respond. Cheryl looked over at Caroline, her eyes wide and frightened. She gave her a reassuring nod, despite her reservations.

She had to trust whatever Gideon was doing.

After a moment, the phone went off again. This time, Gideon was quicker to answer the line.

"Hello?" He said casually, as if he was answering an everyday, regular phone call as he would any other normal day.

The unsub's voice came out annoyed. " _Tell me there was a technical issue with the line, because if you actually just hung up on me—_ "

The receiving line clicked as Gideon hung up for a second time, cutting the unsub off mid-sentence.

"What the hell are you doing?" Mr. Davenport demanded, frowning at Gideon.

The phone rang again and this time, Gideon simply stared at the flashing green button. The trills of the phone started to pound in Caroline's head like mallets on a gong, on right after the other.

_Ring...ring...ring..._

"Is he gonna answer the phone?" Cheryl murmured to Caroline but she didn't even glance over at her. She felt this overwhelming sensation of guilt wash over her as she stood there, allowing Gideon to do this to the already grief-stricken family.

Mr. Davenport turned on Derek and Hotch. "Why is he doing this? What is he—why..." the father whipped towards Gideon, his fingers tugging manically at his pepper grey hair as the phone rang. "You're gonna drive this guy crazy. Just answer the phone."

Gideon held up a finger to Mr. Davenport, effectively shushing him with a reluctant sigh, "Quiet, please. Just a moment."

Another second went by and Gideon didn't move a muscle. Beside her, Cheryl stirred and reached for the phone. Caroline, as if she were on autopilot, leaned over and placed her hands on her slim shoulders and tugged her gently away. Cheryl's body jerked in her hands, but Caroline had a firm grip on her shoulders.

"Cheryl, he knows what he's doing," Caroline assured her.

"Someone has to answer the phone!" she cried out, resisting Caroline's gentle pleas.

"Just answer the phone, for God's sake!" Mr. Davenport's strangled pleas over-shadowed the phone's ringing. He lunged forward with an outstretched hand. "Just pick up the damn phon—"

Derek's arms quickly wrapped around Mr. Davenport and dragged the frightened father away from the phone, trying to assure the desperate man. Hotch stood in front of him, blocking the father from the path to the phone. Cheryl glanced back at Caroline, the betrayal in her eyes was as clear as day. Her heart wrenched.

Gideon answered the call for a second time, "Davenport residence."

" _Are you out of your mind?_ " The unsub demanded, the anger shaking in his voice. " _You do realize, you do understand, that I'll kill Patricia? Do you—_ "

Gideon hung up. Cheryl began to shake as tears fell down her face. Caroline pulled her closer to her, trying to pull her away from the phone.

The phone rang again and Gideon chuckled.

Mr. Davenport exploded, thrashing and writhing against Derek's grip, trying to get to Gideon.

"You're killing my daughter!" He screamed at him, kicking and fighting against Morgan and Hotch. "Pick up the damn phone, you son of a bitch! Pick up the phone!"

"Get him quiet," Gideon commanded as Davenport screamed. "Silence him!"

Cheryl began to sob and Caroline pulled her into her arms, no longer restraining but comforting. The blonde girl buried her face into the young agent's shoulder as she began to quiver and sob in absolute terror. Caroline tried to shield her ears from her father's desperate pleas.

Eventually, Derek and Hotch were able to subdue Davenport. He sunk to the floor with his head in his hands, convulsing. Gideon waited for another ring before answering the phone.

The moment the line clicked to life, the unsub exploded, volatile and spewing, " _She is dead!_ "

Cheryl let out a blood-curdling scream into Caroline's shoulder the moment she heard those words. She soothingly tried to pet Cheryl's hair, murmuring assurances that everything would be fine as her tears soaked Caroline's shirt.

The father had begun to sob on the floor.

 _"You hang up on me again, and I rip her open!_ "

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you have the wrong number," was all Gideon replied with before hanging up on the enraged psychopath.

There was a moment, a single moment when the room was quiet except for Mr. Davenport's ragged breathing and Cheryl's muffled sobs. Caroline, with Cheryl's face pressed into her shoulder, locked eyes with Gideon.

"Please, Gideon," she pleaded to her boss, "Enough."

Mr. Davenport's shoulders sagged forward, looking as if he had aged ten years. He whispered to him, "You killed my daughter."

Jason Gideon chuckled and shook his head. "No, sir."

"Then what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I am saving your daughter, Mr. Davenport."

Both Cheryl and her father began to tremble as the phone rang again, this time an air of finality surrounded it. Caroline knew that the unsub was at his breaking point. If Gideon didn't answer now...they could potentially lose Trish.

"Have a little faith," Gideon murmured, more to himself, as he answered the phone one last time.

" _Put Cheryl on the phone_." The unsub sounded calmer, treading the line between calm and insane.

Gideon's mouth pulled up in a lopsided smile. "No, you're finished talking to Cheryl."

" _Listen to that tone of authority. Just like your published work, Agent Gideon,_ " The unsub snapped at the older agent. " _Fascinating to hear the same arrogant quality in your own voice. You are a bit of a pedant, Jason, a bit didactic?_ "

"Well that's a very interesting conclusion," Gideon said placatingly, mocking the unsub as if he were speaking to a five-year-old. "You sound intelligent and you certainly educated...but we both know that's not true."

" _Oh, I know about you, all of you!_ " The unsub fumed. " _The ambitious Agent Hotchner? Do you wanna be Director of the FBI someday, Agent Hotchner? Would you step on Jason Gideon to get there? I think you would. Post-traumatic stress is a very good excuse._ " Hotch narrowed his eyes as he listened, Caroline watching him intently. The unsub was just spewing bullshit, everything he was saying was wrong. " _Even your sick, pregnant wife can't get you to leave your post!_ "

The unsub was just trying to get under their skin. Hotch and Caroline exchanged a look before he looked away, his stoic face now mixed with a little remorse.

Gideon sat back down in his chair, relaxing as the unsub exploded.

" _Jason Gideon, an expert in the criminal psyche, yet unable to diagnose the autistic leanings of the very insecure Dr. Reid_." Caroline looked over at Reid and watched his face fall, a frown beginning to form. Suddenly, she felt the overwhelming need to give the unsub's a well-deserved kick to the groin. " _Well, maybe he can make money counting cards in Las Vegas._ "

" _Elle Greenaway was promoted too soon. She doesn't have what it takes to make it in the BAU boys club._ " At that, Elle rolled her eyes. " _She wouldn't have even been in the running except for the good graces of Agent Caroline Lucas, who was able to piggyback her through the transfer because of her close personal relationship with Agent Hotchner. It seems as if a promotion is not the only thing keeping him in the FBI, is it?_ "

Caroline shook her head, trying to block out the unsub's words. He was just trying to get under their skin, that's all...

" _Token Derek Morgan wants to be taken seriously, but he is just a pumped-up side of beef_." Across the room, Derek bared his teeth. She could tell the unsub's statement struck close to home.

" _And last, but certainly not the least, is the lovely, sweet Caroline_."

Her blood ran cold. What could the unsub possibly know about her?

The unsub chuckled darkly into the phone. " _With an IQ almost as impressive as Dr. Reid's along with her wits and drive, she could've been anything she wanted. But instead, she chose to be an FBI profiler at sixteen because, despite her facade, she is still just a pathetic, defenseless, worthless little girl whose family died because she couldn't save them_." The unsub's voice lowered, this voice going dark, sending chills up Caroline's spine. " _You're no threat to me, Caroline. You're no threat to anyone._ "

Suddenly, the deep, uncontrollable rage she's harbored since she was sixteen boiled to the surface. Her hands trembled and suddenly she was struggling to keep a neutral face.

He could knock her, fine. But he didn't have the right to even mentioned her family. She would show him a threat...

The team was looking at her now. She felt naked under their wide, sympathetic eyes. Especially Reid's stare. He looked more hurt than sympathetic.

Then she realized she never told them anything about her parents being dead.

" _I know who you are and I know how you think!_ " The unsub claimed, his voice rising in volume until he was practically screaming over the phone. "I know what to do next! Do you?"

And with that, there was the sound of the phone being slammed against something hard and the line went dead.

Cheryl went still in Caroline's arms. She let go and folded her arms around herself trying to push away the unsub's words. All the feelings of anger, emptiness, self-pity she had shoved down deep inside herself when she was sixteen started to emerge and she couldn't stop it.

She couldn't save her family...but she could save this one.

"Why did he say that he knows what to do next?" Mr. Davenport asked, his lips trembling. "Is he...is he gonna hurt my daughter?"

Gideon shook his head softly, staring at the phone deep in thought. "He was grandstanding."

"You can't know that. You—you can't possibly know that!"

"Me. Davenport, I have learned more in the last five minutes than in the last 24 hours."

"Oh, really?" Mr. Davenport muttered sarcastically. "Well, it seems as though I don't understand. Why is he so focused on you?"

Derek spoke up as he helped Davenport to his feet, "Because we are interfering in his relationship with the girls."

"He said he knew all about you."

"Yes, apparently," Caroline said calmly, despite the storm raging inside of her. "He profiled us, Mr. Davenport."

"Why would he do that?" Cheryl asked her, frowning.

"To show us how smart he is."

"Often times the best profilers are the unsub themselves," Reid explained with a small frown still on his face. "They're the ones who are able to walk into an arcade full of children and pinpoint the boy or girl that can be led out quietly."

Caroline took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. "But he made a mistake because he gave us something he didn't expect."

Me. Davenport looked over at Caroline and raised an eyebrow, staring at her skeptically. "Uh-huh, which is?"

"He told us how to find him."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴  
  
  


After the phone call, Mr. Davenport broke down into an enraged fit. He started shouting at Gideon and Hotch, threatening them while the rest of the BAU watched silently, never daring to say a word to intervene. His rage had become so bad, Agent Shyer had come in and had to led him outside to calm him down.

But Caroline couldn't blame him. Who could? His daughter was missing and every second that passed meant there was a possibility that they were one second closer to Trish's death. How would any person react when their child was kidnapped?

Once Davenport left the room, the BAU members gathered to discuss the case in spite of everything.

Caroline sighed and shook her head in thought. "For the suspect to know that much about us, he has to be one of us."

It was the only logical answer that the unsub was an FBI agent. How else would he know about Haley's pregnancy or Elle's promotion? No one on the BAU team besides Hotch or Gideon even knew about Caroline's parents' deaths. In order for the unsub to get that kind of information, he would've had to have access to the FBI database to get her personal file. All of their personal files.

Hotch nodded in agreement. "I'm going to have Garcia do a search of the New Haven FBI field office. The guy we're looking for knows this house, he knows the family."

"There are 700 agents in New Haven and another 70 in satellite offices," Reid stated with a grimace. "Davenport knows quite a few of them."

"Well, while we're narrowing down the list, Cheryl can't stay here," Elle said. "If he's FBI, he has access, weapons, and you bet he's got a strategy."

"So who can we trust?" Morgan questioned, crossing his arms over his chest, eyeing the New Haven FBI agents warily as they shuffled around the house.

"No one," Hotch replied, his face grim. "We need to get Cheryl to a safe house."

"And limit the number of agents she comes in contact with," Caroline added. "She's only safe with us, as far as we know."

"You're right, Caroline," Hotch agreed, "which is why you and Morgan will escort Cheryl to a safe house."

Morgan frowned. "Okay, but what about the other agents?"

"Your primary job is to protect Cheryl," Hotch addressed the two agents, "Both of you have to be on the lookout for any and all suspicious behavior."

Caroline and Morgan both exchanged a look. She could see in his eyes that he was thinking the exact same thing she was.

There was a very good possibility that the unsub would be with them at the safe house.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline slid out of the black FBI SUV as Morgan parked it in front of an old abandoned two-story house. Beside them, a second SUV with three New Haven FBI agents pulled up. She watched them warily as they all climbed out of the SUV—among them was the head investigator, Agent Shyer. He caught her staring and nodded professionally in her direction before giving orders to his agents to run a perimeter around the worn-down house.

Caroline turned to the back of the BAU's SUV and opened the door for Cheryl to exit the car. Her feet hit the grass with a soft smack as she adjusted the FBI windbreaker and cap they had made her wear for disguise. She heard the driver's side door close as Derek disembarked from the SUV but Caroline didn't glance over at him. Her focus was on Cheryl.

Cheryl had been in BAU's custody the whole trip down to the safe house. Before the trip, both Caroline and Derek had come up with arrangements beforehand for Cheryl's protection. Derek would watch their backs and watch the entry and exit ways while Caroline stayed with Cheryl. Both of them were given permission to shoot if necessary.

Suddenly, Caroline's freshly loaded gun felt heavy in its holster on her hip. She tried to ignore the nauseating feeling in her stomach as Cheryl glanced up at the old, abandoned safe house.

"This is it, huh?" She murmured, wrapping her arms around herself as the chilly night breeze washed over them. "The safe house?"

Caroline nodded silently as she led Cheryl inside, with Morgan close behind them.

The safe house was designed to be as inconspicuous as possible. It was a small, two-story house with washed-down, worn-out wooden floorboards and cracked shingles sliding down from the roof. No one would dare stop at a house as old and decrepit looking as this one for no random reason. The inside of the house was better, but no by much. The disregarded red plastic cups from previous stakeouts and Ramon food wrappers from McDonald's and Wendy's saw to that.

Caroline gave Cheryl a small smile. "It'll have to do for now, until you're safe." The blonde girl nodded reluctantly as she headed upstairs with a bag of her things clutched tightly to her chest, glancing around at the house as she went.

Caroline looked back at Derek. "You're going to be fine down here by yourself, right?"

He nodded, rolling his eyes. "I'll be fine, Care. I'll yell if something is wrong."

She gave a quick nod before following Cheryl quietly up the steps. The blonde girl had chosen a small bedroom in the very back of the house to hole up in for now. The wall adjacent to the hallway had been knocked out, now there was only a clear plastic tarp covering up that side of the room. Cheryl had settled into the small cotton bed in the middle of the room while Caroline stepped out to make a quick phone call.

"Are you sure?" Caroline asked Reid through the phone as she paced across an empty room upstairs. "They did a big sweep right when we arrived."

"Yeah, I remember," he told her, "and yet the unsub seems to know everything about us."

Caroline paused and looked out the window into the starry night sky. She began to count the stars, sighing. "Hey, Reid, do you know what a non-local interaction is?"

"Of course," he said slowly, almost confused. "What are you getting at?"

She could hear the crickets chirping from outside as two of the New Haven agents treaded through the grass with flashlights, shining them into the woods as they searched for disturbances. "How can he be holding Trish prisoner and still know exactly what we're talking about?"

"I know what you're saying. It seems like he knows what's going on here the moment that it happens."

"Exactly. There has to be a listening device."

"But they swept the room when we got here."

"Yeah," Caroline murmured, "and then they brought in their own equipment."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Oh... _oh_."

Caroline could hear shuffling in the background and muffled voices and scrapes. She bit her lip as she watched the wandering agents outside.

"They're opening up the New Haven equipment," Reid told her as she watched the scene outside. Just two agents wandering the field...peaceful. "There's a listening device, inside one of the monitors!"

Almost too peaceful. Something was missing, there was supposed to be three agents.

Where was Agent Shyer?

Caroline could hear Reid calling her name as her phone slid from her hand and clattered to the floor in front of her. She slowly pulled out her gun as she crept through the abandoned hallway, her heart pounding in her chest. The night breeze rattled the old windows in the house as she neared Cheryl's room. The door was propped open and she could hear a voice—a man's.

As she neared the door, she leveled her gun in front of her, her hands steady and calm.

 _Shoot if necessary_ , she reminded herself. _Only then_.

Caroline slipped inside Cheryl's room and saw Agent Shyer sitting on the bed with his back to Caroline. In his hand was a knife pointed towards Cheryl, cowering against the headboard of the bed, menacingly as he spoke, his voice surprisingly soft and gentle.

"This is how it should have been all along," Agent Shyer murmured as he moved closer to the blonde girl. "The 3 of us together," he cooed as Cheryl whimpered. "A family."

_What the hell did he know about family?_

"Put the knife down!" Caroline demanded, her voice calm and even as Cheryl stared at her with pleading, terrified eyes.

Slowly, Agent Shyer stood with his arms raised and knife in plain view. He carefully turned around to face Caroline with her gun leveled directly over his heart. The look on his face was desperate, apologetic.

She felt the anger boil over again. He was just like all unsubs, taking advantage of some poor girl because he could.

He wasn't getting away with it this time.

"You don't understand," Agent Shyer said. "You don't understand my relationship with the girls."

"Put the knife down," Caroline repeated, her voice strong in resolve.

"You don't understand—"

"I said put it down!"

Agent Shyer stopped as his face slowly fell. His arms slowly lowered, careful. Their eyes met and Caroline saw the determination flash in his eyes.

He wasn't giving up.

He lunged forward and shoved Caroline against the door. She grunted as she smacked her head against the wood with a sickening thud. The world spun around her as Agent Shyer reared back to smack her.

She felt the hot sting of contact across her face as he knocked her gun out of her hand and kicked it across the room, out of her reach. Her eyes were watering with pain as Caroline lifted herself up. Agent Shyer held the knife close to her rib cage.

She brought her hand up to her nose and wiped at the blood that started to pool out from there. She looked at her bloodied mess of a hand and smiled.

He underestimated her too fast.

As quick as a bolt of lightning, Caroline's hand-to-hand training kicked it. Her hand reached out and whacked the knife out of Shyer's hands faster than he could register it. Before he had time to realize what was happening, Caroline had unholstered his gun and had him on his back on the floor with his gun trained at his forehead and her finger on the trigger.

Agent Shyer looked up at Caroline in shock.

"Who's no threat now, you son of a bitch?" She muttered before turning to Cheryl who was hiding in the corner with a look of fear plastered on her face. Caroline softened her voice before speaking to the frightened girl, "Are you okay?"

Cheryl's head nodded slowly, her long blonde hair quivering. She pointed at Caroline's face and frowned. "You're...you're bleeding."

Caroline ran her hand under her nose a second time and felt the wet, sticky blood clotting there. She suddenly realized she must look like something from the horror movies with the blood trailing down her face. No wonder Cheryl looked so disturbed.

Caroline wiped her nose with the sleeve of her shirt as she glared down at Agent Shyer. There was one more thing she needed to find out before she arrested him...

She slowly leveled the sharp end of her high heel against his crotch and pushed down. Hard.

Shyer groaned in pain. Caroline cocked the gun.

"Now, where is Patricia?"

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

An hour later, Patricia Davenport was found in an abandoned warehouse about ten miles off the interstate, hidden in one of the hundreds of rooms on the property. Mr. Davenport and Gideon came by to pick Cheryl up to take her to the hospital, Mr. Davenport for her daughter, and Gideon for Shyer. Before he left, Gideon had asked her how she had gotten him to tell her where he had hidden Trish.

And like the Footpath killer, it was one secret she'd never tell.

The plane ride back to Quantico had been quiet, half the plane had been asleep by the time the jet took off the tarmac. Even she was able to grab a couple hours of sleep before the BAU arrived home.

When they landed, Caroline thought she would be the only one at Quantico this late at night. She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep at her apartment tonight, not after everything that happened. So, she figured she'd get an early head start at the office and catch up on her paperwork.

That was, until she saw Derek sitting at his desk with his black shirt pulled up to his armpits, exposing his muscular chest and abs. He was rubbing a bandage over his new wound Shyer gave him, just above his hipbone. Caroline paused, frowning as she thought. The look on his face was sour, absolutely self-loathing.

In order to get in, Shyer had tased Derek to get to Cheryl. The high powered shock had knocked him out for the duration of the fight between Shyer and Caroline.

She sighed as she approached Derek Morgan, holding her coat in her arms.

"Hey, you all right?" She asked him. Derek glanced over at her and grunted in response as he pulled his shirt down and sat down at his desk. He didn't say a word. She frowned. "You took a taser hit."

"Yeah, I know I did," he muttered, taking a sip of coffee. Caroline saw the files spread across his desk and she gave him a small smile. "So what?"

"So no one expects you to finish the Davenport file tonight."

Derek chucked. "Yeah, well, I guess it's still a little fresh on my mind. Nothing like 50,000 volts in your back to keep your motor running, right?"

She was silent as he leaned back, exhaling. "You know, Care, I'm just..." He paused and she waited. "I'm lucky as hell that bastard didn't gut me when I was unconscious."

"He wasn't interested in you," Caroline told him.

"Yeah," Derek snorted. He glanced up at Caroline and smirked. "You know, Shyer didn't see you as a peer or a threat. That was his mistake."

Caroline smiled and laughed, "Yes, it was."

The pair laughed with the giddy adrenaline only an FBI agent felt after a case. After a moment, the laughter died out and Caroline's eyes lingered on Derek's paperwork stack on the corner of his desk.

"You're gonna be here all night," Caroline sighed, resigned. She stuck out a hand. "Give me half."

"Ok, be careful what you wish for," Derek grinned as he hefted up about half of the stack of paper and plopped it in her hands. "Knock yourself out."

Caroline examined the files in her hand and noticed it was more than half. She gave Derek a teasingly disapproved look and she slid the top file off the stack in her hands and smacked it against his chest as she gave it back. Derek chuckled as he took the file back and he winked at her as she went to sit down at her desk adjacent to him.

"Hey, Caroline?" Derek's tired voice called her attention in the dim light of the office. She stopped and looked over at him.

"About what Shyer said...about your parents..." He paused, looking a little uncomfortable. Caroline swallowed. "Was—was that true?"

She took a deep breath. "Yeah, yeah it was."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Derek scratched his head, looking unsure. "How did they die? You know...if you don't mind me asking."

She paused in thought.

She wasn't ready to tell him her tragic past. After a year, she had finally gotten Derek to see her as more than some young, new agent but instead someone he can trust, someone who had his back. A friend.

If she told him her past, and what happened to her and her family, she was afraid of not only what he would say, but others. What everyone would think.

Then, she realized if Derek thought about it, there was a possibility Reid wondered about it too. Her heart stopped as she realized what that could mean.

She couldn't lose everything she worked so hard to make—all the effort she put into being okay—be ruined by what happened to her. She wouldn't let it.

"It was a car crash," she lied, the guilt already forming in the pit of her stomach. "I was sixteen and my little brother Charlie was with them. All three of them died."

Derek was silent for a moment.

"I had no idea. I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," Caroline mumbled as she turned to the file she was working on. "S'not your fault."

"I know," he murmured. "Can I ask you another question?"

Caroline sighed, "Sure."

"Why didn't you tell us—the BAU, I mean?"

She opened her mouth to say something but she couldn't think of anything. She set down her pen and decided to be honest with him. "I don't know."

"Look, I know we aren't exactly best friends," Derek admitted, "but we are friends. We are apart of the same team and I trust you with my life."

Caroline was silent, unsure of what to say.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is, you're not alone. You do have friends, Care. You've got me and the team. You're not alone."

She closed her eyes and she felt the strong sting of tears in her eyes. She took a deep breath.

She hadn't realized how much she needed to hear that.

"Thanks, Morgan," she murmured with a small smile on her face. "You have no idea how much that means to me."

Derek gave her a grin. "No sweat. So what are you thinking? Chinese or Indian food while we work?"

Caroline smiled. "Chinese. Definitely."

"Your wish is my command, princess."

"Don't call me princess."

Derek snorted. "Whatever you want, _princess_."

They worked in silence until Caroline just couldn't stand it anymore. She rubbed the back of her neck as she glanced over at Morgan.

"Did—did Reid ever...ever tell you anything about what happened on his date with JJ?" She asked him, trying to sound nonchalant, but they both could hear shaky voice.

Derek smirked. "He did."

"And?"

"And they're friends," he replied, glancing up at her. He winked. "And they're _just_ friends."

And for the first time that night, Caroline smiled.  
  



End file.
